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TMAK'SXATEB FROM THE GMEEK 

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REECIAB TJEAG-EIDX, 8C<C . 

BTJOHN S.HAMFOI&P ESQ" D.C.jL. KH.S 




IO?D'07 JOHN MUM IE AT, 
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TO 
THE RIGHT REVEREND 

JOHN, LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN, 

THE FOLLOWING PAGES ARE INSCRIBED, 

BY THE AUTHOR, 

IN GRATEFUL ACKNOWLEDGEMENT 

OF HIS INVALUABLE FRIENDSHIP, 

NOR LESS 

IN TESTIMONY OF SINCERE RESPECT 

FOR HIS PUBLIC AND PRIVATE VIRTUES, 

AND FOR HIS ABLE APPLICATION 

OF THE VARIOUS AND PROFOUND LEARNING, 

BY WHICH HE IS DISTINGUISHED, 

TO THE ILLUSTRATION OF CHRISTIAN ANTIQUITY. 



PREFACE. 



In the following pages a new translation is at- 
tempted of the Agamemnon of iEschylus. 

The object of the preliminary Dissertation, is 
to condense within a short compass the principal 
facts which illustrate the history, the poetical 
merits, and the moral qualities of Grecian Tra- 
gedy. 

Though, in an essay introductory to a translation 
of a drama of iEschylus, he naturally forms the 
prominent figure, it is hoped that the chief altera- 
tions or improvements introduced into the tragic 
art by his two illustrious imitators and rivals will 
be found in the course of it accurately noted. 

The author has referred to original authorities 



( vi ) 

for many of his facts. The modern sources to 
which he is principally indebted are Bentley's Dis- 
sertation on Phalaris ; the sixth volume of " Voy- 
age du jeune Ana^charsis ;" Schlegel's Lectures on 
the Drama, and a learned compilation published 
at Cambridge, entitled " Theatre of the Greeks. " 

His general aim has been to convey to English 
readers a correct idea of the leading characteristics 
of the higher branch of the Grecian drama. The 
tragedies of Greece were the homilies of antiquity. 
They reflect the sentiments, the feelings, and the 
inspirations of an age, the most brilliant in Athe- 
nian history, and even in the history of the human 
mind. They formed the bright mine of lofty 
thought, and moral aphorism, to which philoso- 
phers and rhetoricians in succeeding ages had 
recourse for materials wherewith to adorn or illus- 
trate their compositions, and to which even the 
fathers of the Church disdained not to apply for 
similar purposes. In our universities and public 
schools they constitute a prominent object of youth- 
ful study; and a series of great scholars, both 



( vii ) 

native and foreign, have poured forth upon them 
the brightest lights of profound learning and acute 
criticism. The facts that illustrate their literary 
history are therefore of general interest. 

It is only necessary to add, that, although the 
majority of English readers can hardly be supposed 
to have time or inclination to peruse voluminous 
translations of the Grecian dramatists, they may 
be interested by having their attention directed to 
the finest specimen of the class, and such the 
Author has long deemed the Agamemnon. 

Others of the Greek tragedies might be pointed 
out, more perfect in their artificial structure, and 
more faultless in their diction; but in general 
grandeur of conception, in sublime imagery, in 
thrilling pathos, and in moral elevation, it perhaps 
transcends them all. 

In thus highly appreciating its merits, he ex- 
presses himself with the greater confidence, from 
knowing that this opinion is sanctioned by the au- 
thority of some of the first scholars and critics of 
the day. 



( viii ) 

Although various translations of this drama have 
been published, distinguished by no ordinary abi- 
lity, the author deems the path yet open of honor- 
able competition. So great indeed are the obstacles 
to success, arising out of the peculiar style of certain 
parts of the original, that, like the bow of Ulysses 
in the hand of the suitors, it seems destined 
to invite and to baffle the efforts of successive 
translators. 

The difficulty of transfusing the beauties and 
peculiarities of a Greek or a Latin poet into a 
modern language, is indeed so great, that he must 
entertain a most presumptuous notion of his own 
powers, who can submit such a production to the 
ordeal of public criticism without unfeigned diffi- 
dence and an earnest appeal to the indulgence of 
his readers. 

If a close adherence to the literal meaning of 
the original were alone requisite, every sound 
scholar might be a successful translator. But 
mere learning, however ably it may develop the 
sense, or illustrate the allusions of the classical 



( ix ) 

poets, can no more do justice to the flashes of airy 
fancy and impassioned feeling, of brilliant senti- 
ment and graceful expression, which sparkle in 
their pages, than a philosopher could imitate by 
any artificial means the coruscations of lightning. 

Literal translation (to quote Dryden) is very 
similar to dancing on ropes with fettered legs ; a 
man may shun a fall by using caution, but grace- 
fulness of motion is not to be expected. 

Yet even this extreme is more tolerable than 
that paraphrastic redundancy which sacrifices the 
nature and truth, the point and terseness of the 
original, and transmutes the laconic language of 
passion or feeling into high-sounding declamation. 
It is like diluting a* fine essence till its peculiar 
charm and exhilarating qualities are wholly ex- 
tinguished. Easily described, but rarely attained, 
is that happy medium between these opposite ex- 
tremes, by which the sense of a classical poet is 
faithfully transfused into another tongue, in a style 
and manner not only poetical, but which recal the 
original to a critical reader. Occasionally the 



( x ) 

English idiom conforms with singular aptitude to 
classical phraseology, especially in the more collo- 
quial scenes of the Grecian dramatists ; but when 
conversation becomes elevated into poetry, or when 
proverbial, humorous, or figurative passages occur, 
it will frequently happen that the only just mode of 
conveying any correct impression of their force 
or beauty, is to search our language for expressions 
of corresponding spirit and meaning, though often 
widely distant from verbal resemblance. Any con- 
siderable departure from this degree of fidelity can 
only be justified in the case of such extraordinary 
conciseness or obscurity as defies all but very free 
translation. Pindar is known to abound in such 
passages, and they not unfrequently occur in the 
choruses of the Greek tragedies. 

These principles of translation condemn, it is 
true, one of the finest poems of this description 
in our own or in any language ; for Pope's Ho- 
mer abounds in exquisite beauties and splendid 
passages, the creation in a great degree of his own 
fancy; while the peculiar energy, the venerable 



( xi ) 

simplicity, and the expressive touches of nature in 
the original, are not seldom sought there in vain.* 
It must be replied, that translators of ordinary 
mould will never be wanting, but we have only 
had one Pope, and perhaps never shall have ano- 
ther ; and therefore, though his " belle Infidelle" 
unquestionably wants the peculiar beauties of Ho- 
mer, she has so many of her own, and those so 
enchanting, that Criticism in her presence is charmed 
into submission, if not into acquiescence, by the 
force of a spell which is felt to be irresistible : 

" Cessit immanis tibi blandienti 
Janitor aulse 
Cerberus : quamvis furiale centum 
Muniant angues caput ejus." — Hor. 

The author may perhaps be permitted to state 
with what degree of strictness he has found it pos- 
sible to apply the above principles to the follow-. 

* A very elegant translation of Homer, in which 
the peculiar errors of Pope are avoided, and both the 
scholar and the poet are conspicuous, has lately ap- 
peared from the pen of Mr. Sotheby. 
b 



( xii ) 

ing translation. The dialogue of JEschylus, though 
often figurative or enigmatical, and sometimes turgid, 
is in general simple and perspicuous. Occasionally 
it is obscure and perplexing from a confusion of 
metaphors, or through abrupt phraseology ; but as 
these blemishes are not frequent, it admits for the 
most part of being translated with fidelity to the 
sense, manner, and style of the original. The au- 
thor must entirely refer to the judgment of critical 
readers the degree of his success. If in this, the 
main portion of the poem, he has essentially failed, 
the fault upon the preceding premises is his own. 

With respect to the choral parts the case is dif- 
ferent. Close translation is here out of the ques- 
tion, or, if attempted, would in general issue in 
riddle or enigma. The truth is, that it is impos- 
sible to translate a chorus of iEschylus into Eng- 
lish, so as at once to be faithful to the original, and 
to be intelligible to an English reader. The vague- 
ness and indistinctness in which his images are 
frequently involved — the abruptness and obscurity 
of his language — the implication rather than the 



( xiii ) 

development of his moral ideas — the allusions to 
customs, and habits, and opinions, altogether foreign 
from our own — render the difficulty insurmount- 
able. In order to be understood it is necessary to 
be somewhat diffuse, and diffuseness is at variance 
with the style of iEschylus in his choral odes. 

That strict fidelity, therefore, to the literal sense 
and manner of the original which the translator 
has attempted in the dialogue, he is quite sensible 
that he has not attained in the choruses. They 
are, what, after many experiments and much labor, 
he found to be alone possible, free translations. 

The class of critics who will receive this candid 
avowal with the greatest indulgence is that of emi- 
nent scholars — should any such be induced to cast 
an eye upon these pages — who, from being aware 
of the justice of the foregoing remarks upon the 
choral parts of the sublime but obscure original, 
will be the first to pardon inevitable defects, and 
to make allowance for imperfect execution. In 
difficult or corrupted passages the ablest commen- 
tators have invariably been consulted, and of dif- 



( xiv ) 
ferent senses what on the whole appeared the most 
probable has been followed. 

The work, such as it is, was not commenced 
with a view to publication. The admiration with 
which a first perusal of the original inspired the 
author, led him to revert again and again to its 
classic pages with increasing delight, till some of 
the finest passages became so interwoven with his 
memory as to induce him to essay on them, in 
moments of leisure, his powers of translation. 
The undertaking thus commenced was subsequently 
more seriously prosecuted, and after imparting a 
charm to various intervals of rural leisure, amidst 
the engagements of an active life, was finally com- 
pleted some years ago. In this state it was seen 
by various friends, to whose learning and taste the 
author has every reason to defer, and but for their 
favourable opinion it would never have been sub- 
mitted to the public eye. In making this allusion 
he owes it to his own feelings to express his obli- 
gation to his learned friend the Bishop of Lincoln 
for several criticisms on the text of iEschylus, and 



( xv ) 

to Professor Smyth for various suggestions which 
have removed as many blemishes from the diction 
of the poem. Nor can he deny himself the grati- 
fication of adding that his attention was directed 
to some interesting points touched upon in the 
preliminary dissertation by the Bishop of Salisbury, 
whose zeal in the cause of literature, at an ad- 
vanced age, is that of an ardent scholar in his 
youthful prime. 

The notes added to the poem are chiefly in- 
tended for English readers. The general grounds 
on which a particular sense is adopted in difficult 
passages are occasionally stated j but to have in- 
dulged in a work like this in minute verbal criti- 
cism would have been useless pedantry. 

The accompanying plates are from ancient gems 
or busts, with the exception of three designs by 
Flaxman, which will lose nothing by a comparison 
with the most classical productions of antiquity. * 



* The mention of the name of this truly distin- 
guished artist recals to my memory a feeling tribute 
c 



( xvi ) 

For the plan of a Greek theatre, with its pic- 
turesque accompaniment, as also for a learned illus- 
tration of it, (printed in the appendix,) the author is 
indebted to his friend C. R. Cockerell, Esq., who 
has already shown the public, in various instances, 
how much light may be reflected on ancient sculp- 
ture and on classical topography by ingenious 
conjecture, when restrained and directed by pro- 
fessional science, elegant learning, and accurate 
local investigation. 

paid to his genius by the generous and accomplished 
Canova. " You come to Rome," said he to me, " and 
admire my works, while you possess in your own 
country, in Flaxman, an artist whose designs excel in 
classical grace all that T am acquainted with in modern 
art." 



ADDITIONAL ERRATA. 

Page 30 — last line of reference, for " Rand" read " Ranee." 
113 — line I— for "became" read "become." 
128— -for " appears" read "appear." 
206 — at the bottom, for " Lucretius" read " Lucretium. 







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A DISSERTATION 



GRECIAN TRAGEDY 



To assign with critical accuracy to a particular 
age or people the origin of dramatic, or interlocu- 
tory poetry, is as impossible as to trace to their 
fountain-head the earliest streams of genius and 
invention. 

The researches of Oriental scholars render it 
probable that this form of poetry existed in the 
East in times beyond the ken of history,* and 

* Vide Sir William Jones's third and seventh dis- 
courses before the Asiatic Society, and his preface to 
the Sacontala, in the course of which he says, " dra- 
matic poetry must have been immemorially ancient in 
the Indian empire." 

The invention of the drama in India, according to a 

b2 



( 4 ) 

that it was indigenous among various nations. If, 
however, the claims of Indian or Chinese literature 
to the honours of remote antiquity should be dis- 
puted, those of the muse of Sion cannot be denied. 
The Book of Job, in which sublime poetry and 
divine wisdom are so beautifully blended, and the 
Song of Songs of Solomon, are positive examples 
of the existence, in the East, of this species of com- 
position, at a period when the echoes, of Delphi 
and of Helicon were mute to the voice of the 
muses, and the banks of the Ilyssus were trodden 
only by barbarian tribes. 

The Asiatic origin of the Greek language may 
now be regarded as an admitted fact, and a similar 
origin must consequently be assigned to a large 
proportion of the first settlers of Greece. Not 
only their language, but also their mythology, rich 

later writer on Hindoo literature, Mr. Hayman Wilson, 
is referred to an inspired sage, named Bharata, but, he 
adds, some authorities ascribe to it the still more ele- 
vated origin of having been communicated to the Vedas 
by the god Brahma. 



( 5 ) 

in Asiatic fables, images, and allusions, leads to 
this conclusion. These popular traditions were 
probably embodied in oral poetry and music, ex- 
hibiting under various forms the initial rudiments 
of lyrical, heroic, and dramatic composition. East- 
ern analogies justify this supposition, and so do 
the incidents and style of many of those fables. 

The dramatic seems a form of composition almost 
natural to man as a social, and, as Aristotle calls 
him, an imitative being,* who delights in all that 
can most vividly realize to his imagination scenes 
and sentiments calculated to arouse his feelings, 
excite his sympathies, or act upon his taste for the 
marvellous. In the first ages of the world, when 
the artificial resources favourable to leisure and to 
study were rare,f and society wore a patriarchal 
aspect, its circumstances were of necessity pecu- 



* To, ts yap fiLfiEtadai crv[A(f)VTOv tolq avBpiairotQ kti 
TtaLcuv ear i. — Arist. de Poet. cap. iv. 

f Philosophy, says Plato in his Republic, com- 
mences with leisure. 



( 6 ) 

liarly social, and the records of memory must 
therefore have been in a certain sense dramatic. 

The poetry of a philosophical and polished age 
is more strongly marked by a tone of reflection 
and sentiment, — the results of self-inspection, ex- 
perience, and refinement ; but it is less social in 
its character, and not equally rich in the display 
of those simple but vivid impressions, which the 
grand objects of nature, and the ties of kindred 
and of country, make upon a primitive and unadul- 
terated people. 

Thus the earliest poetry and history are in an 
especial sense dramatic. Homer is more dramatic 
and less sentimental than Virgil; Herodotus than 
Thucydides ; and the early chroniclers of modern 
history than the more polished and classical com- 
pilers of later date. If we regard the Scriptures 
of the Old Testament, for a moment, merely in the 
light of a literary composition, it will be found 
that the oldest portions are the most dramatic. 
The history of Abraham, and that of Joseph and 
his brethren, for example, derive a peculiar interest 



( 7 ) 

and animation, not merely from their picturesque 
delineation of ancient manners, and their fidelity 
to nature, but also from that close approach to the 
semblance of reality, which their dramatic charac- 
ter produces. The reader is almost ready to per- 
suade himself, that he is present at scenes so gra- 
phically described. Among the many illustrations 
that might be cited, what, for example, can be 
more impressive, or more interesting, than the 
conversation in which Joseph, knowing his brethren 
but as yet unknown by them, anxiously inquires 
after his aged father? " And he asked his brethren 
of their welfare, and said, Is your father well? 
the old man of whom ye spake, is he yet alive ? 
And they answered, Thy servant our father is in 
good health, he is yet alive. And they bowed 
down their heads and made obeisance." — Gen. xliii. 
27, 28. 

The artificial beauties of composition, — the lofty 
declamation, for instance, of Racine or Alfieri, — 
may charm the ears of a Parisian or a Tuscan 
auditory, but lose their power, when translated 



( 8 ) 

into a foreign dialect; whereas the simple pathos, 
the tenderness and nature of these and similar 
passages of the sacred writings, will be felt in 
every portion of the globe, as long as the human 
affections animate the human frame. 

Dramatic composition may therefore be defined 
in a general sense — imitative narrative. It is a 
closer approximation in its form to action and 
reality than mere narrative, and assists the imagi- 
nation of the reader in depicturing in the most 
lively manner the scenes and the characters, which 
it brings before his view. 

This general definition will include all the 
various forms of interlocutory composition, as tra- 
gedy and comedy, the eclogue, the idyl, and the 
Socratic dialogue. 

But though, in a general manner, dramatic poetry 
may be thus described, the specimens of this spe- 
cies of writing, which have appeared under the form 
of ancient tragedy, have made so deep an impres- 
sion on mankind, that the term has insensibly, and 
by a sort of common consent, been restricted in its 



( 9 ) 

highest and most peculiar sense to tragic compo- 
sition, and, thus considered, the acknowledged 
parent of this, the noblest form of the drama, is 
Greece. 

The brightest period of Grecian tragedy was 
coeval with the most brilliant portion of Grecian 
history. This period commences with the battle 
of Marathon, and extends itself through the age 
of Pericles to that of Alexander. 

The intellectual and the political glory of Greece 
were at their acme till towards its close ; and the 
stirring energy of mind, the inspiring soul of 
genius, pervaded her active population, more or 
less, from the coasts of the .^Egean sea to the foot 
of Mount Etna. 

Athens was the centre of this great intellectual 
movement, and the most eminent individuals on 
whom it acted were natives of her soil. Thebes, it 
is true, could boast her Pindar; Halicarnassus her 
Herodotus ; Rhodes her Parrhasius ; — nor was 
Athens backward to do just homage to the kindred 
genius of other states. She indeed could well 



( io ) 

afford to admire and appreciate rival claims ; for 
how brilliant are the luminaries that compose her 
own galaxy of genius: — iEschylus, Sophocles and 
Euripides, the great masters of tragic, and Aristo- 
phanes of comic art ; Thucydides and Xenophon, 
the former the philosopher of history, uniting the 
powers of the orator to the penetration of the 
statesman, the latter a writer of such various ac- 
complishments, that history or philosophy flow 
with equal ease from his pen, and whose style is 
so elegant, that it seems to have been woven by 
the Graces ; # Socrates, of whom Tully has finely 
observed, that he evoked philosophy from the 
clouds, to take her place in a moral form among 
the familiar haunts of men; Plato, scarcely less 
a poet than a philosopher, the parent in Greece 
of sublime sentiment and lofty speculation, though 
often so shadowy and subtle in his views as to 
elude the grasp of comprehension; Aristotle, the 
profound naturalist and metaphysician, the acute 



* The remark applied by Plato to the style of Aris- 
tophanes. 



( 11 ) 

logician and critic, and the scrutinizing observer 

of the various forms and principles of government 

and legislation ; Pericles and Demosthenes, those 

orators, 

" whose resistless eloquence 
Wielded at will that fierce democracy, 
Shook th' arsenal, and fulmined over Greece 
To Macedon and Artaxerxes' throne."* 

In this extraordinary period, the muse of design 
achieved at Athens equal wonders with those of 
poetry and rhetoric, and tragedy was indebted to 
her for some of its finest embellishments. It was 
the happy fortune of Pericles, that his passionate 
desire to decorate Athens, and to render it the 
favourite seat of the muses and the graces, was 
coeval with the existence of artists, whose genius, 
disdaining the bonds of a slavish imitation of 
nature, aspired to epic grandeur of design and 
execution. 

Among these the most illustrious was Phidias, 
equally distinguished as an architect and a sculptor 

* Paradise Regained, book iv. 



( 12 ) 

of the first order, under whom a school of design 
was formed, which transmitted his masterly prin- 
ciples of art in full vigor to the age of Alexander. 
The progressive steps, by which the arts of 
painting and sculpture attained this dignified ele- 
vation, cannot now be accurately traced. The ap- 
proaches were gradual from the age of the Pisis- 
tratidae downwards; and the names of Calamis 
and Miron, of Polycletus and Mycon,* are re- 
corded, as of artists who aimed at ideal grandeur 
of design before Phidias. But although great 
correctness, energy, and ease, had been attained 
in the delineation of the human form, much was 
left to be achieved in giving due effect to the varied 
play of the passions in the countenance, and to the 
high expression of mental dignity. The inspira- 
tions of poetry were now united with the most 
finished correctness of drawing. To use the words 
of a great artist in reference to this period,f " the 
countenances and figures became expressive of 

* Wilkenman, Storia delle Arte, vol. ii. p. 106; and 
Flaxman's Lectures on Sculpture, 
t Do. 



( 13 ) 

exalted beauty ; the action displayed the limbs and 
body with the greatest variety, energy, and grace ; 
the subjects were heroic and divine. They had a 
kindred spirit of sublimity with Homer, of patriotism 
with Tyrtaeus, the noble flights of Pindar, the ter- 
rors of ^Eschylus, and the tenderness of Sopho- 
cles." Sculpture and poetry in this way acted and 
re-acted on each other. The age of their sublime 
achievements was one and the same. They rose 
and declined together. Though Painting ran an 
emulous career with Sculpture, its perishable ma- 
terials have left us no means of descanting on the 
style or merits of a Panaenus, or a Polygnotus ; 
but many portions of the existing groups of the 
Parthenon still attest, that the artists, who employed 
the chisel to imprint on marble the ardent and 
brilliant conceptions of creative fancy, the lofty 
and enchanting images of ideal beauty,* were not 

* The ideal beauty which pervades some of the most 
exquisite of the ancient statues, is, in the spirit of 
Virgil's fine lines, 

Os humerosque Deo similis : namque ipsa decoram 
Caesar iem nato genitrix, lumenque juventae 
Purpureum, et laetos oculis afflarat honores. 



( 14 ) 

less poets than those who used the more durable 
instrument of the pen. These compositions, in 
which may be traced profound learning in art, im- 
parting decision and truth to the bright emanations 
of genius, — which are in the highest degree digni- 
fied, and yet so true to nature that they almost 
appear like human beings suddenly converted into 
marble in the midst of animated action, — are but 
a few mutilated remnants of the productions of that 
age of wonders. The sculpture which adorned the 
temple of Jupiter Olympius at Elis (chiefly the 
work of Phidias) appears to have been, if possible, 
still more poetically grand and impressive than 
that of the Parthenon. According to Pausanias, # 
it formed a splendid dramatic allegory, in which 
marble, ivory and gold, were all but animated into 
being, by the plastic touch of sublime and cultivated 
art. 

The intellectual superiority of Athens was re- 
cognized throughout Greece. Sparta, though 
always ready to encounter her at the point of the 
sword, shrunk with conscious inferiority from col- 

* Pausan. Hist. lib. v. cap. 11. 



( 15 ) 

lision with her orators in public, or deliberative 
assemblies ; # and, being incapable of rivalling 
her in the elegant arts, either affected to despise 
them, or sternly asserted the superiority of her 
own more rigid system. 

The justice of the praises so lavishly bestowed 
upon Athens by Pindar,f if listened to with envy 
by other states, was questioned by none. This 
homage was the more readily conceded in conse- 
quence of the cordiality and politeness, with which 
strangers in general, and men of genius in parti- 
cular, were welcomed at Athens. On this point 
Thucydides makes Pericles expatiate with much 
force in his celebrated funeral oration,J and it was 
so fully counted upon, that men of distinguished 
ability flocked thither from every part of Greece. 
If a poet of another state had written a tragedy, 

* Thucyd. lib. iv. c. 17 ; Plut. de Gloria Athen. 
f Pind. Pyth. vii. — 

7rdcrai(ri yap TroXUat \6yoq 6fxi\ei 
'Kpe^deog clotwv — 
et Not. ad Nem. Carm. iv. 30. ed. Heyne. 
% Thucyd. lib. ii. cap. 39. 



( 16 ) 

says Plato, he was sure to bring it to Athens for 
representation. 5 * 

Such were the general features of the brilliant 
intellectual era, in which tragedy started into being. 
The series of compositions which it includes, 
form, with a few exceptions, one of the most de- 
lightful walks in the enchanted gardens of classical 
literature ; and at the same time that they present 
models of genuine pathos and of fine writing, they 
reflect important light on the superstitions, the 
prejudices, and the moral feelings of the Greeks. 

Tragedy, at its first and original outset, cor- 
responded in no degree with the idea which the 
word suggests to a modern ear, for it included 
nothing truly dramatic. Its earliest form of cele- 
bration was confined to the simple object of sing- 
ing choral odes, accompanied by music and dancing, 
at festivals in honour of Bacchus, at the conclusion 
of the vintage. This custom was not confined to 
the rites of Bacchus, but was an expression of 

* Plato, Laches, vol. v. p. 169, Bipont. ed. 



( 17 ) 

festal gladness attendant on many of the religious 
ceremonies of the Greeks. As poetic contests on 
such occasions were not unusual, it is probable 
they might frequently, if not periodically, occur at 
the Dionysian festival, and that the custom of 
competing for a prize might thus, together with 
the chorus, have engrafted itself on tragedy. 

There is reason to suppose that at these festivals 
recitations took place of odes very opposite in their 
character ; the one grave and lofty, whence tragedy 
originated, the other of a licentious and buffo de- 
scription, which formed the germ of comedy.* 
In all countries where the worship of Bacchus 
prevailed, it was strongly tinctured by that spirit 
of licentiousness and sensuality which more or less 

* Tevofiivr) ovv an a pX^Q avr6a-%edia<TTiKrj. teal avTrj 
(i. e. rpaycjdta) Km r] KcjfjiwSia, // fxey airb tu>v k^ap^ovriov 
rov ^Ldvpafjijjov, T] $e &7ro T(ov ret 0aXXi/ca, a en Kal vvv kv 
TroXKalq ThiV ttoXudv ha/j.ev£i vofii^ofxeva^ Kara fiiKpov 
r)v'c,r)dri, &c. — Arist. de Poet. c. ix. 

What he says afterwards about the Sicilian origin of 
comedy is too vague to demand particular notice. 



( 18 ) 

disgraced the rites of Paganism, and in this respect 
the refined Greeks differed little from neighbour- 
ing and less polished nations. 

The sacrifice of a goat to Bacchus, which formed 
a part of the ceremonial, is said to have given 
birth to the term Tragedy, Tguyoofiia, signifying the 
goat-song. 

Thespis, of whom we know little more than the 
name, and who flourished in the age of Solon, 
added to the interest created by the choral songs 
and dances by introducing an actor, whose office it 
was to recite, during the pauses of the chorus, 
verses in honour of any favourite hero, or in cele- 
bration of some popular or ludicrous incident. 
The face of the actor was bedaubed with wine- 
lees, and the simple paraphernalia necessary to the 
exhibition were conveyed in a waggon, much, we 
presume, after the fashion of the vagrant showmen 
who are in the habit of frequenting our public 

fairs. 

Ignotum Tragicae genus invenisse Camoenss 
Dicitur, et plaustris vexisse poemata Thespis 
Quae canerent, agerentque peruncti faecibus ora. 

Hor. Art. Poet. 279. 



( 19 ) 

Clemens Alexandrinus and Plutarch have intro- 
duced quotations in their works from tragedies 
ascribed to Thespis ; but Bentley, the most learned 
as well as most acute of modern critics, has proved 
almost to demonstration, that these were forgeries 
by Heraclides, and that no written drama of 
Thespis ever existed. The same eminent critic 
cites the authority of the Arundel marble, to prove 
that the 61st Olympiad, B. C. 536, was the date 
of the first exhibitions of Thespis, so that there 
could only have been about two generations be- 
tween him and the battle of Marathon. 

Phrynichus is mentioned as a scholar and suc- 
cessor of Thespis, and from the effects ascribed by 
Herodotus to one of his tragedies, the subject of 
which was the capture of Miletus by the Persians, 
it would appear that he was a poet of no ordinary 
powers. So deeply affected, says the historian, 
was the auditory by the representation, that they 
burst into tears ; but the poet, he adds, was fined 
a thousand drachmae for thus vividly reminding 
c2 



( 20 ) 

them of a domestic calamity, and the repetition of 
the piece was forbidden.* 

To forbid the repetition of the piece might be 
sound policy, but to punish the poet for thus 
drawing from the eyes and hearts of the spectators 
the noblest homage to its power which genius can 
command, or desire, appears a severe enactment, 
especially on the very soil of taste and poetry. 
He was in fact achieving the triumph which Ho- 
race has described as the climax of the poetic 
art.f 

There is no reason to suppose that Phrynichus 
materially advanced the art, or structure of tragedy, 
beyond the point at which it was left by Thespis. 

Upon this simple basis, and with these imper- 



* Herod. Erato, c. xxi. 

f Ille per extentum funem mihi posse videtur 

Ire poeta, meum qui pectus inaniter angit, 

Irritat, mulcet, falsis terroribus implet, 

Ut magus ; et modd me Thebis, modo ponit 

Athenis. 

Epist. lib. ii. 210. 



( 21 ) 

feet materials, iEschylus conceived and framed the 
regular drama — such, in the main, as it is found in 
the works of the greatest poets who have acquired 
in this career the highest reputation. He has, 
therefore, been justly hailed by succeeding ages, 
the Father of Tragic, as Homer of Epic song. 

Time has spared but very scanty particulars of 
his life, yet, such as they are, the record of them 
will afford the best opportunity of detailing the 
special nature of the improvements which he in- 
troduced into the tragic art, as well as the pecu- 
liarities of his own genius. 

Eleusis in Attica gave birth to yEschylus ; ac- 
cording to Stanley in the 63d Olympiad, or about 
525 years B.C. 

His family was noble, and highly distinguished 
in many of its branches by the lustre of superior 
talents, and by eminent services rendered to their 
country. 

A traditionary tale, recorded by Pausanias,* 

* Pausanias, lib. i. cap. 21. 



( 22 ) 

asserts, that when a boy he dreamt that Bacchus 

appeared to him while he kept guard in a vineyard, 

and exhorted him to devote his talents to tragic 

composition. Youthful enthusiasm is prolific of 

such forms 

" as, wove in fancy's loom, 
Float in light vision round the poet's head." 

There is, therefore, nothing improbable in the 
story. 

According to Suidas, he contended for, and won 
the tragic prize in his twenty-fifth year, in compe- 
tition with Pratinas and Chaerilus ; but it is doubt- 
ful whether, at this early period, he had shaken off 
the trammels of the Thespian school.* 

Pratinas was the inventor of the satiric drama, 



* That the grand improvements introduced by 
iEschylus are to be referred to a later period, is ren- 
dered the more probable from the assertion of Aris- 
totle, that it was long before tragedy rejected the 
trochaic tetrameter, and assumed the more dignified 
yet colloquial iambic, in the structure of its dialogue. 



( 23 ) 

a species of burlesque tragedy, to which the Athe- 
nians were extremely partial, and of which a 
specimen is preserved in the Cyclops of Euri- 
pides. 

Tne next mention of the poet is in the career of 
arms. He fought at Marathon under Miltiades in 
his thirty-fifth year, and so highly distinguished 
himself, as to be one of those to whom the prize of 
peculiar valour was assigned, after the termination 
of that conflict, so glorious to liberty and to 
Athens. 

Two of his brothers, Cynaegirus and Ameinias, 
whose bravery had been equally conspicuous, re- 
ceived ,the same honourable distinction. 

He no less signalized himself in the naval action 
of Salamis, and in the decisive battle of Plataea. 
In the former of these conflicts his brother Amei- 
nias is said to have acquired peculiar glory, by 
sinking the vessel of the Persian admiral. 

The era which followed the defeat of Xerxes 
has already been designated as the brightest in the 
annals of Athens. Placed at the head of the 



( 24 ) 

Grecian confederacy by her valour and her policy, 
the neighbouring maritime states became in general 
either her tributaries or dependants ; an enlarged 
commerce followed, with wealth and leisure in its 
train, the useful and elegant arts and the severer 
sciences were assiduously cultivated, and Athens 
rose again out of the Persian ashes, at once the 
eye and the ornament of Greece. 

It was at this period that iEschylus attained the 
summit of poetical reputation, and the tragic con- 
test became under his auspices the favourite popu- 
lar amusement of the Athenians. 

What he achieved, has deservedly enrolled his 
name among the illustrious few, to whom the 
highest honours of genius are assigned. He in- 
vented all those prominent attributes in the struc- 
ture, the spirit, and the accompaniments of tragedy, 
which have raised it, by the suffrages of the greatest 
critics, to a rank among the various productions of 
poetry, second only in dignity to the epopee. He 
not only succeeded in acting upon the feelings, 
and touching the passions of his auditory, by 



( 25 ) 

means and for ends consistent with virtue and pro- 
priety, but he represented the very objects that he 
described; he invested them with suitable forms, 
and placed them in such a manner before the 
spectators, as should realise to their imaginations 
the images which tradition suggested of the heroes, 
the sages, and the deities of Grecian tradition or 
mythology. 

Out of upwards of seventy tragedies which he 
composed, seven only have survived the ravages of 
time, so that our actual means of judging of the 
extent of his poetical powers are extremely limited. 
Among these, however, are some, the Agamemnon, 
the Seven Chiefs, and the Prometheus, that as 
long as they exist, will never cease to class among 
the finest productions of human genius. The 
strength and energy of fancy with which he con- 
ceived his subjects are obvious throughout these 
dramas. Homer himself has not more strongly 
individualized his Hector, his Ajax, his Achilles, 
than JEschylus his Agamemnon, his Clytemnestra, 
his Prometheus. The lyrical inspiration of his 



( 26 ) 

choruses often approaches the sublime of Pindar, 
and the Greek language, nervous, comprehensive, 
and subtle as it is, can scarcely give full expression 
to the compass and energy of his thoughts and 
images. In pouring forth the ardent emotions of 
his mind, recital and narrative are often suddenly 
converted into picturesque delineation or bold per- 
sonification. Perhaps there is no poet ancient or 
modern, Shakspeare and Milton alone excepted, 
from whose writings more striking instances might 
be cited of what Horace acutely styles " disjecti 
membra poetas," that is to say, the shreds of sen- 
tences, so finely expressed as to be themselves 
poetry. The " vermeil tinctured lip," the " tresses 
like the morn," of Milton, " the spirit-stirring 
drum," " the eye-train'd bird," " the tender leaves 
of hope," of Shakspeare, are instances of this 
description, and may be contrasted with the 
[AaXQctxbv opfjuxTciov £e\og, the A^lQufj,ov epoorog oivQoc, 
the §opvTiM>tTO$ alfljip e7ri^aivsTai, of iEschylus. 
" Thoughts that breathe, and words that burn." 

Though Quintilian has dismissed iEschylus with 



( 27 ) 

too slight a notice, the general suffrage of antiquity 
ascribed to him the highest powers of creative 
genius. What Aristophanes says of him shall 
hereafter be cited. Longinus praises in strong 
terms the magnificence of his imagery, and quotes, 
as an instance, the well-known description of the 
sacrifice at the commencement of the " Seven 
Chiefs."* The testimony of Dionysius Halicarnas- 
sensisf is as follows : iEschylus peculiarly excelled 
in loftiness of thought, and in a just conception of 
what constitutes dignity in the delineation of the 
passions and manners. His style is wonderfully 
adorned by figurative and impressive language, 
and he is very skilful in the invention of words 
and circumstances adapted to his particular pur- 
poses. Bergler quotes from an epitaph upon him 
by Antipater the following expressive lines. 

O rpayiKov (p'JvqjjLa, kcu oKpyoeaaav aaih)i/ 
YIvp-ya)crciQ GTi(3aprj 7rpaJTog kv evettlt]. 

The judgment of the moderns respecting him is 

* Longin. de Sub. c. xv. 5. 

f Dionys. Hal. vol. ii. ed.' Hudson, 69. 



( 28 ) 

precisely similar. To use the language of a great 
poet and able critic* — " At his summons, the mys- 
terious and tremendous volume of destiny, in which 
are inscribed the doom of gods and men, seemed 
to display its leaves of iron before the appalled 
spectators ; the more than mortal voices of deities, 
Titans, and departed heroes, were heard in awful 
conference; Olympus bowed, and its deities de- 
scended ; earth yawned and gave up the pale 
spectres of the dead and the yet more undefined 
and grisly forms of those infernal deities who 
struck horror into the gods themselves. All this 
could only be dared and done by a poet of the 
highest order, confident, during that early age of 
enthusiasm, that he addressed an audience prompt 
to kindle at the heroic scene which he placed 
before them. It followed almost naturally, from 
his character, that the dramas of JEschylus, though 
full of terrible interest, should be deficient in 
grace and softness ; that his sublime conciseness 

* Sir Walter Scott's Essay on the Drama. 



( 29 ) 

should deviate sometimes into harshness and ob- 
scurity ; and that his plots should appear rude and 
inartificial, contrasted with those of his successors 
in the dramatic art. Still, however, iEschylus led 
not only the way in the noble career of the Grecian 
drama, but outstripped, in point of sublimity at 
least, those by whom he was followed." 

The term " theatre" suggests to a modern ear 
the idea of a building devoted to nocturnal amuse- 
ment, blazing with the splendor of innumerable 
lights, and replete with objects of the highest 
excitement. 

These ideas must either be dismissed, or modi- 
fied, in order to form a just notion of the " theatres" 
of the Greeks. They were open to the skies ; the 
representations took place in broad daylight ; # and, 
from considerations of propriety, no female actors 
were allowed. 

Occasional annoyance must have been experi- 
enced from sudden changes of the weather, or 

* Barnesii Tract, de Tragced. 



( 30 ) 

from radiant sunshine ; but these were possibly 
guarded against by contrivances which are not 
mentioned, * or an occasional interruption was 
deemed by the spectators of little moment, in com- 
parison of the general delight of inhaling the pure 
air, and being fanned by the soft breezes of their 
delicious climate. Again, the modern theatre is a 
scene solely devoted to pleasure. Nobody goes 
there with the idea of receiving positive instruction. 
But tragic representation among the Greeks was a 
species of religious ceremonial, and, as compared 
with that of later times, might almost be termed a 
school of divinity. It commenced with sacrifice,f 
and the professed aim of its poets was to render 
amusement subordinate to moral instruction. Aris- 
totle expressly contends for this principle,;}; and 
iEschylus is made, by Aristophanes, to rebuke 
Euripides severely for its occasional violation. 

* Barnesii Tract, de Tragced. 
•f Plutarch in Cimone. 
J Aristot. de Poet. c. 7. 
§ Aristoph. Rand. 1043. 



( 31 ) 

We will say nothing in this place about the 
errors of heathen morality, or the grossness of 
heathen superstition, even in their best forms. We 
only assert the fact, that the aim was thus noble, 
however imperfect the execution. Hence Milton, 
who, with the exception of the finer tragedies of 
Shakspeare, # justly regarded the modern, in its 
moral character, as a degenerated scion of the 
ancient drama, thus expresses himself with regard 
to the Greek school. 

" Tragedy, as it was anciently composed, hath 
been ever held the gravest, moralest, and most 
profitable of all other poems, therefore said by 
Aristotle to be of power, by raising pity and fear, 
or terror, to purge the mind of these and such like 
passions, that is, to temper and reduce them to 
just measure, with a kind of delight, stirred up by 
reading or seeing those passions well imitated. 

* After alluding, in II Penseroso, to the pensive 
grandeur of Ancient Tragedy, he adds, 

And what thot rare, of later age, 
Ennobled hath the buskined stage. 



( 32 ) 

" Hence philosophers, and other gravest writers, 
as Cicero, Plutarch, and others, frequently cite 
out of tragic poets, both to adorn and illustrate 
their discourse. 

" This is mentioned, to vindicate tragedy from 
the small esteem, or rather infamy, which, in the 
account of many, it undergoes at this day, with 
other common interludes." 

Milton, in composing Tragedy, strictly adhered 
to the ancient models, and the Samson Agonistes, 
though defective in dramatic action, is a noble 
monument of his successful rivalry of their style 
and spirit. 

Tragedy, under Thespis, it has already been 
said, was nothing more than the recitation, by a 
single actor, of the exploits or adventures of some 
real or fabulous hero or heroes, which relieved, at 
intervals, the monotony of the chorus. By the in- 
troduction of two, and, occasionally, of more per- 
sons of the drama, # and by assigning to each a 

* It has been a favourite hypothesis with writers 
on the ancient drama, that Sophocles was the first 



( 33 ) 

distinct part, iEschylus gave the representation of 
a varied and continuous action, accompanied by all 
the animation of dialogue, and excitive of those 
peculiar emotions which the semblance of reality 
produces on the imagination. The illusion of 
appropriate, though not moveable scenery was 
added, in giving effect to which the poet availed 
himself of the assistance of distinguished artists. 
In this particular Sophocles, according to Aris- 
totle, greatly improved upon the inventions of his 
predecessor, yet it is obvious that the machinery 

person who introduced a third actor. But a little re- 
flection on the incidents of the Agamemnon, renders it 
next to certain that three, at least, were occasionally 
resorted to by iEschylus. How could it be otherwise, 
for instance, where Agamemnon presents Cassandra to 
Clytemnestra, and commends her to her kindness ? 
On this point the authority of Bentley may be regarded 
as conclusive. iEschylus (he says) is generally re- 
ported as the inventor of the second actor ; and yet 
several believed that afterwards he invented, too, the 
third actor ; for, in the making of seventy-five tra- 
gedies, he had time enough to improve further upon 
his first model. — Bentley 's Phalaris, p. 240. 



( 34 ) 

necessary to give effect to some of the scenes in 
the existing dramas of ^Eschylus, required no or- 
dinary degree of ingenuity and invention. The 
Prometheus, for example, demanded considerable 
exertion both of pictorial and mechanical skill. 
The eye of the spectator was to rest upon the 
scenery of a savage and rocky eminence on the 
bosom of the trackless deep, to which the giant rebel 
was chained : the chorus of sea nymphs, who visit 
and condole with him, were introduced as if wafted 
in a winged chariot ; and old Oceanus, who follow- 
ed them, made his entree on what seemed a flying 
steed, or, as the scholiast will have it, a griffin. 
These particulars are not merely to be inferred 
from the incidents of the piece, but are confirmed 
by the authority of Aristophanes, who alludes in 
the " Frogs" with much humour to the introduc- 
tion, by iEschylus, of these and similar mysterious 
beings in his dramas.* Agatharcus, a painter, is 

* Aristoph. Ranse, 960 and 1320. Ed. Burmanni. 



( 35 ) 

mentioned by Vitruvius as having rendered the 
poet important aid in these contrivances,* 

The ancient tragedies were not usually thus 
fraught with the marvellous, and the requisite 
scenery was extremely simple. The outside of a 
temple, a mansion, or a palace, or the interior 
court of either, sufficed for the greater part of the 
incidents introduced into these compositions. The 
privacy in which the Greek women lived, forbade 
the representation of the interior apartments of 
houses, and thus excluded from the ancient drama 
those scenes of amatory intrigue, which supply the 
modern stage with so much dangerous, and often 
pernicious excitement. 

Much taste was displayed by iEschylus in the 
drapery of his performers, which, according to 
Athenaeus,-)- was arranged with such elegance, and 
at the same time with such attention to propriety, 
as to have furnished models for improving the 
habits of the ministers of religion. Vulgarity and 

* Vitruvius, Praef. lib. vii. 
■f Athen. Casaub. lib. i. c. 18. 



( 36 ) 

grossness had probably marked their gait and 
attire under Thespis. Horace alludes to this re- 
form, and to the general dignity now impressed 
upon tragedy : 

Post hunc personae, pallaeque repertor honestae, 
iEschylus, et modicis instravit pulpita tignis 
Et docuit magnumque loqui, nitique cothurno. 

The costume of the deities whom he introduced 
was conformed either to some conventional model, 
or was borrowed from that of the most decorous 
and appropriate of their respective statues. 

His actors were elevated much above the natural 
stature by lofty buskins, and they wore sculptured 
or painted masks, adapted to the characters whom 
they represented. 

These were probably a little rude in their exe- 
cution in the first instance, but they acquired, as 
the fine arts advanced towards perfection, a high 
degree of finish and expression. 

They were shifted as the progress of the action 
required a change of expression, and they were so 
constructed as to aid the powers of the voice. 



( 37 ) 

Many imitations of these masks exist in collections 
of ancient sculpture and painting, and justify the 
opinion that the talents of the first artists of Athens 
were employed to give to the originals the most 
exquisite traits of feature and character. The use 
of such an expedient can only be accounted for, 
or defended, by a reference to the customs of the 
Greeks, and to the magnitude of their theatres. 

It has already been stated, that no female per- 
formers were allowed on the stage of Greece, con- 
sequently, feminine beauty, grace, and dignity, could 
only be imitated by the use of masks. 

From the vast circumference of their theatres, 
the majority of the spectators were placed at such 
a distance from the stage, that few would have 
been able to trace the varying expression of im- 
passioned sentiment or feeling in the countenances 
of the performers themselves, whereas the strong 
relief of the mask conveyed the ideal semblance 
of each distinct personage ; a circumstance which 
afforded a latitude and power to the dramatic art 
far more extended than if the same individual feice 



( 38 ) 

had been employed to represent a great variety 
of characters and emotions. The delusion of the 
masks and of the scene was also heightened from 
the distance whence they were surveyed. 

The general aim was, that the actors, by appro- 
priate beauty of drapery or armour, by dignity or 
grace of form and manner, and by lofty declama- 
tion, should communicate to the spectators the same 
sentiment of ideal grandeur which so peculiarly 
pervades the language and the incidents of Grecian 
tragedy, and thus realize to them in every way the 
images which fancy suggested of the heroic ages. 
To this end, mechanical means were employed to 
diffuse, or circumscribe the light, at pleasure, over 
the stage and the orchestra, as the blaze of broad 
daylight, by robbing the artificial appendages of 
all mystery, and bringing them into too close a 
comparison with the truth of nature, would have 
been fatal to their effect. The actors thus cir- 
cumstanced, must have appeared, throughout the 
changing scenes, like so many successive groups 
of animated and breathing sculpture, an art, with 



( 3fl ; 

which, as it existed in the age of Pericles, Grecian 
tragedy has often and justly been compared. 

The first theatre at Athens was a rude fabric of 
wood, and was burnt down in the time of Pratinas,* 
already alluded to as the inventor of the satyric 
drama. The succeeding building was probably 
erected under the auspices of iEschylus, and 
adapted to his improvements and inventions in the 
tragic art; but it was either totally rebuilt, or 
greatly enlarged by Pericles, when it assumed, it 
is supposed, a magnificence adapted to that age of 
luxury and embellishment. The general form, 
and some portions of the masonry of this fabric 
are still discoverable at Athens, and bear the ap- 
pellation of the theatre of Bacchus. In it the 
chef-d'ceuvres of Sophocles and Euripides were 
represented. A passage from the Symposium of 
Platof has frequently been cited, to prove that its 



* Suidas in Pratinas. 

f Plat. Op. Symp. vol. x. p. 172. Ed. Bipont. The 
words are rjye Trapa cS via ovtoq ovru) atyodpa e^iXa/u^/e 



( 39 ) 

dimensions were so vast as to be capable of ac- 
commodating more than thirty thousand spectators, 
but there is good reason to regard this assertion 
as hyberbolical. The mode, in fact, of its intro- 
duction, in no degree entitles it to be regarded as 
an historical statement. Agatho, one of the guests 
supposed to be present at the " Symposium," had 
recently obtained the tragic garland ; and to him 
Socrates addresses the flattering remark that his 
fame had been brilliantly displayed on that occa- 
sion in the presence of more than thirty thousand 
of the Greeks. As the charm of the compliment 
would obviously be heightened by an exaggeration 
of the numbers, the philosopher may naturally be 
conjectured to have spoken largely; but this sup- 
position is rendered almost matter of fact by the 
result of scientific modern admeasurements of the 
remains of the principal Greek theatres, for the 
most capacious among them, which appear to have 



kcu etc^apfjQ iyivtro 7rpu)r)v kv fiaprvcri rwv 'EAXZ/rw*' 
irXeov rj rpia/JivpioiQ. 



( 39 ) 

equalled in dimensions that of Athens, could not 
have contained, even when crowded, more than 
twenty thousand spectators.* 

The beautiful situation occupied by the remains 
of many of the ancient theatres justifies the suppo- 
sition, that they were studiously placed so as to 
command, and to incorporate with their own archi- 
tectural features, the finest objects of the adjacent 
country. The majestic mountains, and luxuriant 
plains, the groves, and gardens, the land-locked 
and open sea, in the neighbourhood of many of 
the principal cities of Greece, presented the finest 
materials which taste could suggest or desire, for 
such combinations. But the charm of Southern 
landscape depends not solely on the romantic or 
beautiful features which enter into its composition. 
In that land of the Sun, the purity of the atmo- 
sphere, the rich and magical hues of colour, the 
soft loveliness of the aerial perspective, the power- 
ful relief of light and shadow, produce on the 

* Mr. Cockerell is the Author's authority for the 
above statement. 



( 40 ) 

senses, while contemplating the beauties of Nature, 
impressions of pleasure rarely equalled even on 
our finest days in these Northern regions. 

" Where'er we gaze, around, above, below, 
What rainbow tints, what magic charms are found, 
Rocks, river, forest, mountain all abound ! 
And bluest skies to harmonize the whole." 

Childe Harold. 

Select portions of landscapes thus composed 
and coloured, viewed through the openings of a 
fine architectural building, must have feasted the 
eye with living pictures of exquisite grace and 
beauty. 

The theatre of Taurominium, in Sicily, was so 
placed, that the audience had a fine view of iEtna, 
in the back ground of the distance. That of 
Athens comprehended the various declivities of 
Mount Hymettus, and overlooked the Saronic gulf, 
and the emporium of Piraeus, with its three ports. 
Above it towered the Acropolis, crowned by the 
majestic Parthenon. In point of situation, there- 
fore, it must have been perfect, and in beauty, it 



( 40 ) 

is said by Dichaearchus,* a writer of the age of 
Demetrius Phalereus, or about 310 B.C., to have 
transcended all similar buildings. 

In shape the ancient theatres were not unlike 
that of a horse-shoe. The seats of the spectators 
consisted of steps, ranging one above another, 
round the segment of nearly three-fourths of a 
circle, which this shape supposes. The lower 
seats belonged to persons of quality and to ma- 
gistrates, the middle to the commonalty, and the 
upper are said to have been appropriated tofemales.f 
It has, however, been questioned whether they 
frequented the theatre. That they did not attend 
comic spectacles, in the time of Aristophanes, 
Schlegel has pretty clearly proved ; but that they 

* Leake's Athens, p. 58. The same learned writer 
has given an engraving of an ancient Athenian coin 
which illustrates the above particulars. It represents 
the great Athenian theatre viewed from below. Above 
it rises the wall of the Acropolis, over the centre of 
which towers the Parthenon, and to the left is the 
Propylaea. 

f Potter's Archseologia, vol. i. p. 42. 



( 41 ) 

were present at tragedies may be inferred from an 
anecdote, hereafter mentioned, connected with the 
representation of the Eumenides of iEschylus, 
which could not otherwise have obtained the 
slightest credit. 

Scalae, or flights of steps, diverging in equi- 
distant radii from the bottom to the top, formed 
the communications with the seats. 

What is called in modern theatres the Pit, was 
termed the orchestra, though relatively much con- 
tracted, and was occupied by the chorus, a band 
of performers whose function it was to recite or 
sing the lyrical compositions or odes which oc- 
curred between the different acts of the piece. 

In the centre of the orchestra, and on a level 
with the stage, was an altar, called Thymele,* on 
which sacrifice was offered before the tragic con- 
tests commenced: there were steps round it, on 



* Suidas in ^Krjpfj' says — eii jxitci ti\v opyji^pav /3wyuo£ 
r« Aiovvaa, og naXeirai 6vpe\i]' naph to OueiV — Vid. et. 
Jul. Pollux, lib. iv. 123, Eurip. Ion. 161, et Plut. in 
Cimone. 



( 41 ) 

which the chorus stood when they joined in the 
dialogue of the actors. 

Though there is great difficulty in reconciling 
and in reducing to clearness many of the asser- 
tions of Julius Pollux, Vitruvius, and other ancient 
authors respecting the parts which composed the 
scene and the stage of the Greek theatre, it is 
hoped that the following statement may reflect 
some light upon this subject, so interesting to 
classical scholars, and which has been so much 
agitated by antiquaries. 

The scene, ^xrjv^, was a solid architectural build- 
ing of considerable elevation, presenting a highly 
ornamental fagade, with three principal and two 
minor gateways.* It was often decorated with costly 
columns and statues, and to it were suspended 
such painted and moveable scenes as the piece to 
be represented might require.f In front was a 
permanent stage, a portion of which was covered 

* Julius Pollux, iv. 124, et Vitruvius, lib. 
"f" icara fiXr/para M vcpatrfiara, i] Tr'ivaKeq ijffar, i^ovrlq 
ypci0aQ, rfj xpt'V ™ v SpafXarbti'. — Julius Pollux, iv. 131. 



( 42 ) 

by a temporary roof or awning, which served to 
conceal the mechanism of the scenery, and to sus- 
pend the avKaiu, or curtain. This was termed the 
proscenium. The stage on which the actors stood, 
called Koysiov, and in Latin pulpitum, occupied the 
width of the orchestra, and was placed in front of 
the permanent stage. Its shape was varied ac- 
cording to the purposes of the representation, and 
it was moveable.* 

Vitruvius has described, with much detail, vases 
of brass and sometimes of pottery placed under 
the seats or precinctions of the theatre to promote 
the transmission of sound :* it may be inferred from 
his description that the aid they rendered was im- 
portant, but this portion of his work has never 
been sufficiently understood to allow of its applica- 
tion to the construction of any modern buildings ; 
nor, except at Scythopolis in Syria, have the smallest 
traces of them been found in the remains of ancient 
theatres. ~j~ If the facts he states are authentic, it 

* Vitruvius, lib. 5. 

•f Mr. Cockerell, who unites an accurate knowledge 



( 43 ) 

must follow that the moderns are much behind 
the ancients in the science of acoustics. 

The ancient theatres were not only used for 
scenical representations, but for contests in music 
and in other departments of genius or of skill. 
Various festivals,* and not unfrequently political 
assemblies, were also held in them. That of Me- 
galopolis is supposed to have been constructed of 
larger dimensions than would otherwise have been 
requisite, in order to accommodate the great Arca- 
dian council. f At Athens the assemblies of the 
people were originally held in the Pnyx, a place 
of concourse venerable from its antiquity, and in- 
teresting from its associations with the noblest 

of what the classical writers have said of the theatre of 
Greece to an intimate acquaintance with its architec- 
ture acquired during his travels in that country, has 
favoured me, in reply to various inquiries which I put 
to him on this subject, with an answer so calculated 
to clear up its difficulties, that, with his permission, I 
have printed it in an Appendix to this volume. 

* Demosthenes in Meidiam. Ed. Taylori, p. 106. 

f Leake's Morea, vol. ii. 40. 



( 44 ) 

recollections of her history ; but towards the close 
of the Pelopponesian war, they more frequently 
took place in the theatre of Bacchus.* In the age 
of Philip and Alexander the custom had become 
frequent at Athens of honouring with a crown of 
gold any citizens who had rendered signal ser- 
vices to their country, and on such occasions procla- 
mation was made in the theatre during the grand 
festival of Bacchus, when the new tragedies were 
exhibited, and the throng of strangers as well as 
of citizens was great, of the name and merits of 
the individual thus highly honored. The rival 
orations of Demosthenes and iEschines, de Corona, 
are fraught with allusions to the custom. 

JEschylus not unfrequently acted a part in his 
own dramas, and animated the performers by his 
example and instructions. He skilfully adapted 
the embellishments of the chorus to the incidents 
of the piece, though in this respect he sometimes 
overstepped, through the fervour of his fancy, 

* Thucyd. lib. viii. 92. 



( 45 ) 

the bounds of propriety. An example of this de- 
scription occurred, it is said, at the representation 
of the Eumenides, a drama still extant, in which 
Orestes, after taking vengeance on his mother for 
the murder of his father, is represented as 
haunted and pursued by the furies. These in- 
fernal deities were introduced upon the stage, their 
hair braided with serpents, torches and other em- 
blems of terror in their hands, and accompanied 
by a numerous train of kindred attendants, when 
the effects produced by fear upon some of the 
females and children of the auditory were such, 
that the magistrates interfered, and restricted, by a 
legislative enactment, the number of the chorus to 
thirty. It was afterwards reduced to fifteen. An 
extravagance, akin to that which has just been 
noticed, occasionally marked the action of his 
dramas. He has been ridiculed by Aristophanes 
for placing and retaining on the stage, through 
the successive periods of a long action, mute 
personages, who, after sustaining this part till 
towards the close, broke forth into one or two 
piercing exclamations, and then disappeared. Thus 



( 46 ) 

Achilles,*' after the death of Patroclus, and Niobe, 
after that of her daughters, were introduced in two 
of his tragedies, with their heads veiled, and fixed 
in speechless grief till the conclusion of the drama. 
Whether the dialogue of tragedy was delivered 
in a tone of appropriate declamation, or in a style 
of impressive recitative, regulated by an accom- 
paniment of the flute or pipe, has been a subject 
of much learned discussion. It is clear from the 
testimony of Horace, that the colloquy of Roman 
tragedy proceeded in the latter way; and Burney, 
in his History of Music, has adduced various pas- 
sages from Aristotle and Plutarch, to prove the 
same of that of Greece. Schlegel, on the other 
hand, opposes the inferences drawn from those 
passages. They are in fact of very ambiguous 
import, and at the utmost afford nothing beyond 
a plausible colouring to the hypothesis. The col- 
loquial though dignified style of the Grecian drama, 
its fidelity to nature, its simplicity and pathos, ap- 

* 7rpo)TL~a f.iey yap c{] y tva rlv eitadiaev ayKa\vJ/ctQ, 
A^tXXta tiv\ ?), Nt6j3rji>, to Trpopunrov ov^i Seixvvc, 
TrpoayYijia tijq Tpayio^iag, ypv^ovrag &$e rovrl. 

Ranee, 942. 



( 47 ) 

pear directly opposed to the supposition of a highly 
artificial mode of delivery ; yet a measured and 
impressive recitation, and an elevated tone of voice, 
must have been essential to the due transmission 
of sound over a vast area ; and some slight musical 
accompaniment to regulate the pitch of the voice 
would not be at variance with an easy yet lofty 
style of declamation. 

Under Thespis and his immediate successors 
little or no relation appears to have existed between 
the subjects of the chorus and that of the accom- 
panying monologues. The latter had merely been 
introduced as episodes or interludes between the 
pauses of the chorus. The case was now exactly 
reversed ; the dialogue formed the main body of 
the piece, and the chorus became no more than an 
interlude. The choral songs formed in their sub- 
ject an impressive comment on the incidents of the 
drama, giving utterance in sage and solemn strains 
to the moral or religious sentiments, or to the 
patriotic emotions which it was supposed the pass- 
Cene ought to excite in the spectators.* 

* Ariat. tie Poet. c. x. 26. 



( 48 ) 

It has been said, in allusion to the lofty style 
and the lyrical inspiration of these compositions, 
that if in ancient tragedy the performers spoke the 
language of heroes and kings, they spoke in the 
choruses the language of the gods. 

The place occupied by the chorus, and the 
number to which it was restricted, have already 
been adverted to. 

The individuals composing it represented any 
character that best suited the purpose of the drama, 
whether it required that they should personate a 
band of aged men, or of sage matrons, or of priests, 
or virgins, or of attendants on festal mirth or funeral 
solemnity. 

While singing or reciting the part assigned 
them, they danced in time to the measure and 
cadence of music, in bands of equal number, 
moving from right to left as they repeated the 
choral strophe, then back from left to right during 
the antistrophe, and facing the spectators as they 
recited the epode. 

The style of the dances was grave or lively, 



( 49 ) 

according to the nature of the poetry which they 
accompanied. Indelicate movements or gestures 
are expressly reprobated by Aristotle, as totally at 
variance with the moral character of tragedy.* 
Some idea may be formed of the skill with which 
the dancing was accommodated to the subject from 
the testimony of the same author, as quoted by 
Athenasus,-)- who states that Telestes, a performer 
in the Seven Chiefs of Thebes, was so accom- 
plished in this particular, that the course of the 
action was perfectly expressed by his movements. 

The musical instruments which served as an 
accompaniment to the voices of the chorus were 
few and simple. As the poetry directly related to 
the incidents of the piece, to which it served as 
an explanation or comment, it required distinct 
articulation; consequently, the music was not to 
overwhelm the voices of the singers. The flute, 
the pipe, and the lyre, the instruments almost ex- 



* Arist. de Poet. c. xviii. 
j- Athen. lib. i. c. xviii. 

E 



( 50 ) 

clusively used, were precisely of this character. 
Yet in martial choruses, such as those of the Seven 
Chiefs, the occasional introduction of the trumpet 
was probably permitted. 

Of the wonderful effects produced by modern 
orchestras in giving to the compositions of the 
poet the united aid of exquisite singing and music, 
in the most complex, yet most harmonious combi- 
nation, and with a power that electrifies and asto- 
nishes even unscientific ears, the Greeks appear to 
have known nothing. Yet, after all, what com- 
binations of this description can touch the feelings 
like the tones of the human voice with a simple 
accompaniment, provided those tones be of a very 
fine quality. Here lay the true source, it is pro- 
bable, of that wonderful power ascribed to Gre- 
cian music in melting, or exciting the passions. 
In this way Demodocus in Homer draws tears 
from the eyes of Ulysses. # The early attention 
which the Greeks paid to vocal, no less than to 

* Odyss. lib. viii. 86. 



( 51 ) 

musical science, their high degree of natural taste, 
and the favourable influence of their exquisite cli- 
mate, conspired to give to the human voice among 
them, a compass, a sweetness, and a flexibility, 
unknown in countries less polished, or more dis- 
tant from the sun. 

The culture of musical science, the study of 
dialectics, and the exercises of the palaestra, formed 
the prominent features of education at Athens in 
her best days. Anaxagoras introduced there a 
taste for philosophical speculation ; and, under his 
instructions, Pericles, it is said, acquired that dig- 
nified and polished style of rhetoric of which he 
was the first who set his countrymen the example. 
In what way music was rendered by the Greeks 
subservient to moral discipline is not very intelli- 
gibly explained, though it is strongly asserted by 
their greatest philosophers. Pythagoras delighted 
in its study, and inculcated it on his disciples. 
Plato ascribes mucii of the growing degeneracy of 
his countrymen to their abandonment of the simple, 
severe, and grave character of the ancient music, 
e2 



( 52 ) 

for a style effeminate and sensual. Similar com- 
plaints are made by Aristotle. In all the principal 
schools of philosophy music was cultivated, and 
innumerable treatises on it emanated from them. 

" go, view 
The schools of ancient sages : his who bred 
Great Alexander to subdue the world. 
Lyceum there, and painted Stoa next : 
There thou shalt hear and learn the secret power 
Of harmony in tones and numbers hit, 
By voice or hand, and various-measured verse, 
iEolian charms and Dorian lyric odes." 

Par. Reg. book iv. 

There is a curious passage in Thucydides, in 
which he states that the Spartan troops were care- 
fully taught to march upon their enemies to the 
measured sound of flutes or pipes, which not only 
animated their courage, but was specially designed 
to regulate the movement of their limbs, and to 
re'strain within due bounds their natural impe- 
tuosity. 5 ^ 

Polybius has recorded some very curious de- 

* Thucyd. lib. v. 70. 



( 53 ) 

tails of the musical education of the Arcadians, 
and particular instances are related of Solon, of 
Terpander, and of Timotheus, in which, by ac- 
companying impassioned strains of poetry with the 
lyre, or the flute, they produced an overpowering 
influence on illustrious individuals or on large 
auditories. 

The expense of getting up the chorus was con- 
siderable. It was defrayed by the government 
for every poet whose piece, after undergoing the 
scrutiny of appointed judges, was deemed worthy 
of being admitted to the tragic contest. Great 
pains were taken, by diligent rehearsals, to pre- 
pare the performers for an able discharge of their 
allotted functions. Athenaeus records an instance 
in which Sophocles sung to the music of his lyre 
in the chorus of one of his own tragedies.* 

However deep was the interest which the Greeks 
took in the dialogue of tragedy, the chorus appears 
to have been their peculiar delight. Its lyrical 

* Athen. lib. i. c. xvii. 



( 54 ) 

inspiration, the rhythm of the verse, its thrilling 
appeals to their patriotic or religious feelings, the 
mystic solemnity of its dances, and its musical 
attractions, styled by Aristotle the principal em- 
bellishment of tragedy, sufficiently account for this 
preference.* 

To native Greeks, enthusiastically alive to these 
various attractions, and intimately acquainted with 
the traditions or customs, whence originated num- 
berless allusions unintelligible to the acutest mo- 
dern scholars, the time occupied by the chorus was 
a sort of continued enchantment. To the modern 
student indeed, who is embarrassed by its difficul- 
ties of construction, and the obscurity of its allu- 
sions, who surveys it stripped of its appropriate 
embellishments, and who can at best but imper- 
fectly appreciate the grace and harmony, the swell 
and pomp, of its high-sounding lays, it is apt to 



* /cat on ov fxitcpbv fiipog ty\v jJLOvatiiijy Kat rr)v oxpiv 
£X £ h ^' %€ ra C ydovdg eirioTavTcu ivapyeaTUTU. — Arist. 
de Poet. c. xviii. 



( 55 ) 

appear a tedious suspension in the development of 
the plot, an unnatural separation between kindred 
portions of the dialogue. Nor can it be denied 
that in the case of iEschylus it often swelled into 
prolixity, since its restriction within narrower 
bounds is one of the improvements ascribed by the 
ancient critics themselves to his successors. But 
to do real justice to the chorus, the critic must 
forget himself and the modern world, and realise 
as nearly as possible the feelings, the prejudices, 
and the tastes of an ancient Greek ; he must reflect 
on the variety and the perfection of its various 
embellishments : what he has felt or thought in 
his closet, with his lexicon on one side and Her- 
mannus de Metris on the other, after some severe 
hours spent in combating the knotty difficulties 
of a chorus, ought, if possible, to be altogether 
discarded from his memory. 

What poetry to English ears can sound more 
musically harmonious, for instance, than the choral 
parts of Milton's Comus ? Were the English to 
become a dead language, and a foreign student to 



( 56 ) 

occupy himself with those compositions after a 
lapse of many centuries of ignorance and bar- 
barism had clouded over the meaning of their local 
or learned allusions, and, by introducing a false 
pronunciation, had broken the spell of their har- 
mony, or dissolved the charm of " their linked 
sweetness long drawn out," what a different judg- 
ment would he probably pass upon them from that 
which a correct knowledge of all these particulars 
now produces. 

It will be obvious from the preceding statement 
that the chorus, with its various accompaniments, 
formed the striking peculiarity of the ancient as 
opposed to modern tragedy. The subjects, more- 
over, round which the former revolved, being prin- 
cipally derived from poetic history and marvellous 
tradition, imparted to it a mien and port peculiarly 
stately, corresponding to the expressive touches of 
Milton's portraiture : 

" Sometimes let gorgeous Tragedy 
In sceptred pall come sweeping by, 
Presenting Thebes or Pelops' line, 
Or the tale of Troy divine. 



( 57- ) 

This restriction of subjects was a necessary con- 
sequence of the circumstances in which Greece 
was at this time placed — isolated by superior re- 
finement from the rest of the world, confined 
therefore to her own resources, and only just be- 
ginning to be enriched with the expanding trea- 
sures of authentic history. Considering how simi- 
lar, nay, often, how identical, are the subjects of the 
three great tragedians, we cannot but admire the 
richness of invention, and the ingenuity, displayed 
in the variety of their treatment. 

Occasionally the persons composing the choral 
band descended from the heights of Empyrean 
poetry, and took part in the dialogue itself, by 
means of their xopvpouos (Coryphaeus) or leader. 
He spoke according to circumstances, either as a 
single person, or for the whole band, or aided the 
progress of the action by brief explanations, or 
uttered expressions of pity for suffering virtue, or 
in condemnation of crime or impiety. At such 
times the choral band advanced to the front of the 



( 58 ) 

orchestra, so as to be brought within the sphere 
of the action. 

The style of speaking and sentiment, to which 
the chorus is confined when thus passing the 
limits of its more official functions, proves that the 
expedient of the Coryphaeus was resorted to only 
when circumstances called for remarks, or expla- 
nations, which could not properly proceed from 
the persons of the drama. Nothing in fact can be 
more tame or puerile than the style of speaking to 
which he is restricted. Father Brumoy, in allusion 
to it, calls him, with laughable quaintness, " Vhon- 
nete homme de la piece." 

When the incidents that elicited these common- 
place remarks were of a nature to excite the 
strongest emotions of terror or pity, of surprise or 
admiration, there must have been something ex- 
tremely ludicrous in the contrast between the feel- 
ings of the spectators, and the cold truisms quaintly 
uttered by the chorus. These and similar absur- 
dities were a necessary consequence of that law of 



( 59 ) 

Grecian tragedy, which permitted not the chorus 
to quit the theatre throughout the progress of the 
drama, and yet never allowed of their active inter- 
vention. They were consequently auditors of all 
supposed soliloquies, privy to all plots, spectators 
of all impending dangers, and at the same time 
condemned to passive quiescence. 

Sir Walter Scott, in his Essay on the Drama, 
has placed this portion of our subject in so hu- 
morous a light, that we must indulge in a quota- 
tion. 

" When a deed of violence was to be acted, the 
helpless chorus, instead of interfering to prevent 
the atrocity to which the perpetrator had made 
them privy, could only, by the rules of the theatre, 
exhaust their sorrow and surprise in dithyrambics. 
This was well ridiculed by Bentley in his farce 
called the " Wishes" in one part of which strange 
performance he introduced a chorus after the man- 
ner of the ancient Greeks, who are informed by 
one of the dramatis personae, that a madman with 
a firebrand has just entered the vaults beneath the 



( 60 ) 

place which they occupy, and which contains a 
magazine of gunpowder. The chorus, instead of 
stirring from the dangerous vicinity, immediately 
commence a long complaint of the hardship of 
their fate, exclaiming pathetically — ' Oh ! un- 
happy madman — or rather unhappy we the victims 
of this madman's fury — or thrice, thrice unhappy 
the friends of the madman, who did not secure him 
and restrain him from the perpetration of such 
deeds of frenzy — or three and four times hapless 
the keeper of the magazine who forgot the keys in 
the door !' " 

The above is of course a humorous caricature 
of the extra-official functions of the chorus, yet 
many instances might be pointed out of the com- 
plete apathy with which they are made to survey 
scenes of crime, or danger, or terror, which would 
almost justify a literal application of the satire. 

Before the subject of the chorus is dismissed, 
the light which it reflects on the religious and 
moral opinions of the Greeks deserves to be ad- 
verted to. 






( 61 ) 

The mystic lore of Pythagoras, the lofty specu- 
lations of Plato, the logical subtleties of the schools, 
were for the philosophical few. The tragic poet 
was to arouse or touch the feelings of the multi- 
tude of Athens : he therefore selected those 
topics to which the understandings and the hearts 
of his auditors would most surely and sympatheti- 
cally respond. A tone of ideal grandeur, it is 
true, was diffused over his characters, and per- 
vaded his sentiments; yet not in such a degree as 
wholly to lift them out of the sphere of ordinary 
humanity. Making, therefore, due allowance for 
the exaggeration of poetry, we may derive from 
these dramatic writers a tolerably correct idea of 
the moral resources of their countrymen, under 
the pressure of the sorrows and trials inevitable to 
humanity. 

It is impossible to peruse the choruses of JEs- 
chylus without acknowledging that his moral aim 
was lofty, and that, according to his imperfect 
light, his piety was sincere. Reverence for the 
gods— respect for the sanctity of an oath, and of 



( 02 ) 

the conjugal tie — inflexible justice — moderation in 
prosperity — patience under sufferings — devoted 
love to our country — generous hospitality ; — 
these are the moral principles which he inculcates, 
and to which his countrymen, however defective 
their practice, listened with applause. 

Nothing that is licentious or impure stains his 
pages, or leaves it doubtful, as in the case of Euri- 
pides, whether the parade of morality, rather than 
a real moral feeling, inspired the apparent indig- 
nation with which he lashes vice or impiety, or 
does homage to suffering virtue. 

It is interesting to trace in these particulars a 
verification of the scriptural assertion, that even 
among the Heathen " God left not himself without 
witness ;" for we clearly recognise in these choral 
strains, no less than in the principal schools of 
Grecian philosophy, the power of conscience, the 
restless stirrings of the immortal mind, and a clear 
perception of the essential difference between vice 
and virtue. 

Where then does the poet fail ? He fails, in the 



( 63 ) 

first place, by that meagre, imperfect knowledge 
of the depth and extent of moral obligation, which 
is obvious in every system of Pagan ethics ; but 
he particularly fails, where Heathens or Deists ever 
must, in the attempt to fortify even the moral prin- 
ciples for which they do contend, by sanctions prac- 
tically efficacious. How could it be otherwise ? 
In the absence of the light of Revelation there 
can be no certain knowledge of the nature of the 
true God, and therefore no unhesitating appeal to 
the authority of a Supreme Ruler, infinite in 
wisdom and power, in justice and mercy, whose 
will, emanating from these perfections, forms the 
necessary and eternal rule of right and wrong. 
Neither can there be any but glimmering notions 
of a future life and a future judgment, the certainty 
of which invests the precepts of Christianity with 
such awful force and such controlling influence. 

A settled darkness rested on the religious hori- 
zon of the great mass of the Heathen world, from 
the confounding influence of the follies and crimes 
which their mythology ascribed to the gods whom 



( 64 ) 

they adored ; # and even their philosophers, many 
of whom soared above these vulgar superstitions, 
were staggered on the very threshold of inquiry 
by their inability to reconcile the origin and pre- 
valence of moral evil with any satisfactory notions 
of the divine justice and benevolence. 

Why Sin and Evil were permitted to enter into 
the world, and mar the works of a Being to 
whose perfections they are infinitely opposed, is a 

* How the vices ascribed to the gods operated on 
morals, is keenly illustrated in numberless passages of 
the dialogues of Lucian, a writer, who, though belonging 
to the later periods of Grecian literature, thought and 
composed, as it has been justly observed, in the spirit of 
the age of Pericles. Aristophanes often touches with 
caustic force on the same subject : thus in the Clouds, 
as translated by Cumberland — 

Adkcceol. What is justice ? 
There's no such thing — I traverse your appeal. 

DicccoL How, no such thing as justice? 

AdxccEol. No : where is it ? 

Dicceol. With the immortal gods. 

Adicceol. If it be there, 
How chanced it Jupiter himself escaped 
For his unnatural deeds to his own father ? 



( 65 ) 

question, which, though partially cleared up by 
the light of Revelation, is in many of its relations 
beyond the grasp of human intelligence. Even 
the most obvious phenomena of nature are a mys- 
tery to man the moment that he attempts to pene- 
trate their final causes. To a capacity so limited, 
the secret counsels of the Great Eternal, and the 
stupendous scheme of his moral government of the 
universe, embracing, as it probably may, the rela- 
tions of past, present, and to come, must conse- 
quently, in a transcendently higher degree, prove 
an unfathomable depth. It is enough for man to 
know that the nature of that Almighty Being is 
essential Truth and Goodness ; that Evil origi- 
nated in rebellious opposition to his holy will, and 
shall finally exist only in its penal consequences. 
Revelation, though it repels the searchings of vain 
curiosity, illustrates these particulars, so essential 
to human happiness and to moral ends, with a 
plenitude of light. In the great scheme of Re- 
demption, in particular, it opens to the eye of Faith 
such refulgent manifestations of the love of God 
to a lapsed world, and such bright prospects of 
the immortal felicity which awaits his faithful ser- 
vants, as ought to dispel every shade of doubt, 



( 66 ) 

and all anxiety but that of pleasing Him " in whose 
favour is life," " and at whose right hand are 
pleasures for evermore." In the absence of this 
celestial light, the most fanciful expedients were 
resorted to for cutting the knot, which it was found 
impossible to unloose. Hence, throughout the East, 
the Magian hypothesis of two eternal, supreme, 
and conflicting Principles — the one evil, the other 
good, each of whom was to be worshipped and pro- 
pitiated. Hence, among the Grecian poets, especially 
the tragedians, the ascription of Supreme power 
to a blind Destiny, of which gods and men were 
more or less the victims. Nothing in their Olympus 
like stability, nothing like eternity is to be found. 
The throne of Jupiter himself was founded on the 
ruins of the dynasties of a race of elder gods, and 
he is represented as harassed by fears lest Destiny 
had decreed the subversion of his own. iEschylus 
propounds this doctrine in the Prometheus; it 
occurs in Homer ; and Lucian, in later times, 
made it in his dialogues the subject of his caustic 
irony and wit. How merry in his pages is Momus 
i at the expense of the father of the gods, whom he 
represents as a limited being, subject in all respects 
to the blind and inscrutable decrees of Fate ! 



( 67 ) 

On this same principle, persons eminent for the 
very virtues which these writers most enforced, 
are represented as liable to become, by the de- 
crees of Destiny, miserable victims of uncontrol- 
able misfortunes, unwilling perpetrators of dread- 
ful crimes. 

It was Destiny, or Necessity, (another word for 
it,) which stifled in the bosom of Agamemnon the 
feelings of a father when he sacrificed Iphigineia 
at the bloody shrine of Diana. It was Destiny 
that guided the steel of Orestes to the breast of 
his guilty mother, and yet left him, in punishment 
of the parricidal act, to be haunted and maddened 
by the Furies. Even Clytemnestra palliates her 
guilt by the plea, that a relentless demon, the in- 
stigator of the crimes of the house of Atreus, had 
irresistibly acted on her will. The sacrifice of 
black cattle to Infernal Jupiter, to Night, and to 
the Furies, originated in these bewildering views, 
which supposed the existence of an undefinable, 
but supreme power, inimical to human happiness. 

Under the withering influence of such a system, 



( 68 ) 

what moral virtues could fairly expand, what hope 
could cheer or animate afflicted humanity, or suf- 
fering virtue ? Yet there are not wanting modern 
writers of eminent popularity, who, in contrasting 
the features of Grecian Paganism with Christianity, 
have painted the former as joyous, festive, and 
attractive, the latter as gloomy, melancholy and 
repulsive. 

What is called the gloom and severity of Chris- 
tianity, is but the discipline necessary to restore a 
fallen creature to his original dignity and happi- 
ness. 

What is called the joyousness of Heathenism, is 
but a set of expedients to drown present reflection, 
and to strew with flowers the path of moral cor- 
ruption, and ultimate misery. 

From these remarks, produced by the theolo- 
gical and moral strains of the chorus, we return to 
the more immediate tenor of our subject. 

The tragic contests principally took place at the 
great festival of Bacchus, in part of March and 
April. Athens was then crowded with strangers, 



( 69 ) 

anxious to view these " dramatic Olympia, " and 
with deputies from her dependancies, who came to 
pay into her treasury their annual tribute. When 
trilogies were acted, the contest must often have 
extended through successive days. 

A trilogy consisted of three tragedies, the sub- 
jects of which were not necessarily allied and con- 
tinuous, though they often were. Occasionally a 
tetralogy was produced, by adding to the three 
tragedies a fourth piece, which was usually a sa- 
tiric drama. 

The prize was not awarded to the victor by the 
suffrages of the assembled multitude, though their 
impressions naturally influenced the decision. It 
was committed, by the presiding archon, to the 
award of a select number of judges, who were 
bound by a solemn oath to observe the most rigid 
impartiality, though their virtue, it appears, was 
not so stern as to be always inaccessible to a bribe. 
The victor was crowned in the presence of the 
assembled multitude, and hailed by their enthu- 
siastic plaudits. Glory was the real prize, for a 



( 70 ) 

wreath of ivy was the only visible fruit of the 
triumph. Horace probably had a special eye to 
this fact in designating the Greeks 

" prseter laudem nullius avaris." 

The name not only of the victor was pro- 
claimed, but those also of the one or two who ap- 
proached the nearest to him in merit. 

It appears from the Symposium of Plato, in 
which Agatho, a tragic poet who had gained the 
prize, is introduced, that it was usual for the victor 
to offer sacrifice for his success in the presence 
of his friends, and his choral performers, at the 
earliest opportunity after the contest. 

The prize of the victorious chorus was a tripod, 
and it was usually dedicated by the choregus, or 
chorus -master, in a particular street or quarter 
adjoining the theatre, and thence denominated 
" Tripodes." To these tripods were attached the 
names of the presiding archon, of the poet who 
composed the piece, and of the choregus. Most 
of the choragic inscriptions at Athens are of the 



( 71 ) 

latter part of the fourth century. Many of the 
tripods were placed on temples dedicated to Bac- 
chus ; others on columns and rocks near the 
theatre, as their remains still testify.* These mo- 
numents are not only in themselves interesting, but 
fix beyond doubt the site of the Dionysian theatre. 
" Among them is the beautiful little temple of Ly- 
sicrates, in honour of the victory of his chorus, 
with a roof rising to a triangular apex, for the 
support of the prize tripod. It answers exactly to 
one of those temples mentioned by Pausanias as 
standing in the quarter of the tripods, between the 
Prytaneum and the sacred inclosure of Bacchus, "f 
The number of festivals and processions at Athens 
requiring the services of a chorus, was such, that 
each tribe was obliged to provide a choregus, who 
was maintained, if the tribe was poor, at the ex- 
pense of the state. The first duty of the choregus, 
after providing a set of singers and musicians, 
selected in general from his own tribe, was to ap- 

* Leake's Athens, p. 153. f Id. 



( 72 ) 

point a teacher (xopo$&oi<rxot\o$) to instruct them in 
their parts. Their diet was regulated with a view 
to strengthen the voice. He had also to furnish 
the sacred clothes adorned with gold, and all the 
other ornamental appendages of the performers. 
At festivals and pompous processions he appeared 
at their head, wearing a gilt crown and a splendid 
robe. 

From this account it will be evident that the 
office of choregus involved a considerable expense, 
and, although the standard was limited by law, it 
was often exceeded through vanity and the desire 
of distinction. In subsequent times, when tragedy 
was propagated from Athens into the courts of 
princes, the splendour of the tragic chorus was 
exceedingly magnificent, as at Alexandria and 
Rome, which led Horace to complain that the 
beauties of the poetry attracted far less attention 
than the gaudiness of the accompaniments. 

The choregi appointed by the tribes were allotted 
by the archon to the rival poets, which was called 
" giving a chorus." 



( 73 ) 

Contests between rival choruses were not con- 
fined to tragic representation, but occurred at 
various public festivals. A tripod appears to have 
been the customary prize ; but in earlier times, 
when a goat was the prize of tragedy, the Cyclian 
choruses, according to Bentley, contended for a 
bull, and the harpers for a calf. 

The famous Simonides won fifty-six of these 
victories, as appears from an epitaph on his tomb, 
recorded by Tzetzes. 

"E| £7rt 7revrriKovra, ^.tfjiajviCTj r/pao vikclq 
Kat Tpinodac.* 

His great contemporaries, Themistocles and Aris- 
tides, disdained not to undertake in their turn the 
office of choregi. Aristides (says Plutarch) dedi- 
cated in the temple of Bacchus choraic tripods on 



* " Fifty-six victories and as many tripods, oh Si- 
monides, thou didst obtain." The above facts are col- 
lected from Voyage d'Anacharsis, vol. ii. c. 12; Boeckh's 
Economy of Athens, vol. ii. 207 ; Bentley 's Phalaris, 
254. 289 ; and " Theatre of the Greeks," p. 202. 



( 74 ) 

account of his victory, which still exist with this 
inscription. " The tribe Antiochis gained* the vic- 
tory, Aristides was choregus, Archestratus composed 
the piece." The same author states that Themis- 
tocles, when choregus at a tragic representation, 
won the prize, and put up a tablet in memory of 
his triumph, with this inscription. " Themistocles 
was choregus, Phrynichus wrote the piece, Adi- 
mantus was archon." Plutarch enumerates, among 
various other choregi, the illustrious name of Plato. 
The commonalty of Athens were admitted to 
the theatre, by a decree passed through the influ- 
ence of Pericles, at the rate of two oboli per head, 
which sum the magistrates were directed to pay for 
every applicant unable to pay for himself. The 
public treasury of Athens, supplied in a great 



* 'Avtio^iq eviKa' ' ApiGTsiSriQ kyppiiyei, 'ApyiaTparoq 
eSISchtke — Plut. in Aris. He says of Themistocles, 
eviKr}(TE Se kcu xppr]ya>y ev rpayiocSoig, &c. — K€l\ invaKa 
rfjg viicrJQ avedrjtce, roiavrrjv S7nypa({>^v eyovTa ®r}[jn<r- 
tokKtig kyppriyzi — QpvviypQ kh&aoKEi — A^eifiavTOQ rip^ev' 



( 75 ) 

measure by the contributions levied on her allies, 
was prodigally drawn upon for this purpose. Se- 
vere censures were occasionally flung out against 
the dishonesty of the practice by public orators, 
but the people were so tenacious of their privilege, 
that even the eloquence of Demosthenes, when 
directed against it, proved unavailing. 

A remarkable instance is recorded of the degree 
in which their imaginations were absorbed by the 
fictitious events of the drama. The dreadful in- 
telligence of the complete destruction of the 
Athenian fleet and army under Nicias in Sicily, 
towards the close of the Peloponnesian war, 
reached the city when its numerous population 
was assembled in the theatre, entirely absorbed 
by the representation of a drama half tragic, half 
comic, by Hegemon. The messenger announced 
the fatal news. Scarcely a person there but had 
lost a son, or husband, a brother, or a friend. A 
moment's pause gave expression to a thrilling sen- 
sation of general grief. The next moment a signal 
was given to go on with the piece, and, wrapping 



( 76 ) 

their heads in their mantles, they continued to 
survey, or listen to it, to the end. # 

The latter days of iEschylus corresponded not 
in prosperity to those of his youth and manhood. 
It is certain that he incurred voluntary exile from 
Athens, though the exact cause is involved in ob- 
scurity. Probably a concurrence of disappoint- 
ments had soured his lofty and ambitious spirit, 
and he had to encounter in the Athenian mob a 
people whose caprice was proverbial. 

On one occasion popular indignation was ex- 
cited against him on a charge of his having been 



* The passage in Athenaeus is so curious that 
learned readers will thank us for its insertion. 

iv Ze ty\ YiyavTO[iayia ovtlo o-<podpa rovg 'Adr^vatovg 
tKrjXrjffev, tog ev ekelvtj rrj rj/nipqi 7rXfTo-ra avTOvg yekaaac 
kcll tol ayyeXdivTOJV avTolg ev raj Oedrp^ twv -)£VOfXEviov 
7repl ^LKeXiav aTvyjijidTtov, ovZe\q cnteaTr), /cat tol ay^edov 
7ra<ri twv olke'llov curoXioXortov' eicXaiov ovv eyKa\v\pdjj.evoi, 
ovk avivT-qaav 3e, iva fxi) yiviovrai SicKpaveig rolg airb nov 
aWiov 7t6Xeo)v detopovaiv a^dojiEvoL ry ffVfMpopai' SiEfXEivav 
(faKpoiojiEvnC /cat tol /cat clvtov tov 'tlyrjfiovog, wg ^kovctev, 
(jllokclv ^LEyvLOKorog. — lib. ix. 407. 



( 77 ) 

guilty of violating in a tragedy the sanctity of the 
Eleusinian mysteries. Clemens Alexandrinus, # who 
notices the charge, says that he escaped by proving 
to his judges that he was not initiated, and that his 
fault was therefore unintentional ; but ^lian,f who 
touches on the same topic in the fifth book of 
his history, asserts that he would have been capi- 
tally condemned, had not his brother, Ameinias, 
averted the fury of the judges and of the people, 
by stepping forwards, and appealing to their feel- 
ings in favour of ^Eschylus by displaying the 
stump of the arm which he had himself lost in the 
action of Salamis. 

This story is probably founded in fact ; for the 
Greeks became furious when any indignity, either 
real or supposed, was offered to the objects of 
their superstitious worship. Thus Aristophanes 
introduces in his " Frogs" an imprecation of ven- 
geance on one Cynesias, who had offered insult to 
the bust of Hecate. Thus also Thucydides paints 

* Strom, lib. ii. c. xiv. 
f iElian, lib. v. c. 19. 



( 'S ) 

in vivid colours the popular fury excited against 
Alcibiades, when suspected of mutilating, or causing 
to be mutilated, the Hermae, fixed upon the side 
of the public ways in and about Athens ; and 
similar instances of popular superstition might be 
multiplied from Grecian history. 

The retirement of iEschylus from Athens has 
also been ascribed to resentment at the preference 
bestowed upon a tragedy of his rival Sophocles, in 
the case of a contest, instituted on a memorable 
occasion. According to Plutarch, # Cimon, in 
obedience to an oracle, commanding the Athenians 
to bring back the bones of their ancient hero 
Theseus to Attica, had diligently sought, and suc- 
cessfully discovered these remains in the isle of 
Scyros, whence he transferred them with great 
pomp to their native seat. In celebration of this 
popular act, public games were instituted, and the 
tragic poets were invited to a contest. When it 
took place the prize was awarded in a more solemn 

* Pint, in Cimone. 



( 79 ) 

manner than usual ; for, at the request of the pre- 
siding archon, the judges were named by Cimon 
and his officers, who graced the occasion with 
their presence. The prize, after much delibera- 
tion, was assigned to Sophocles, which iEschylus 
was so little able to brook, that he quitted his 
country for Sicily, where he was hospitably re- 
ceived by Hiero of Syracuse, a prince of literary 
tastes and great munificence, and whose name has 
been immortalized by the muse of Pindar. 

The fame of iEschylus had already been esta- 
blished on so firm a basis, and the generosity of 
his disposition is so imprinted on his poetry, that 
it would scarcely be just, to credit on evidence no 
better than that of a writer so late as Plutarch, a 
story thus derogatory to the moral qualities of his 
mind. Whatever concurrence of circumstances 
made him leave Athens, it is certain that he never 
returned thither, and that he settled in Sicily. 

Literature and the arts were cultivated at this 
period with distinguished success in that island. 
The court of Hiero was the resort of men of 



( 80 ) 

genius from various parts of Greece, among whom 
the names of Xenocles in philosophy, and of Si- 
monides and Bacchilides in poetry, are particularly 
recorded. Pindar also was a cherished visitant at 
the court of Hiero, and the expatriated poet, in 
case they met there, must have found in him not 
only a kindred genius, but one who, from his in- 
timate acquaintance with Athens, was peculiarly 
qualified to enter into his feelings. 

How long he survived his self-banishment is not 
certain. Sicily, notwithstanding its local and lite- 
rary attractions, must have appeared insipid, com- 
pared with Athens, to so ambitious and ardent a 
spirit; and a constant though involuntary recur- 
rence to the scenes and circumstances of his early 
friendships and triumphs, and to the rupture of 
the ties which linked him with them, diffused pro- 
bably a pensive, if not a sombre tinge over his 
latter days. 

But if, as Plutarch asserts, his feelings were 
wounded, his language and reasoning were philo- 
sophical. Athenaeus quotes with great encomium 



( 81 ) 

his having said, in allusion to the preference 
shown to his rival, " that he dedicated his own 
tragedies to Time."* 

He also ascribes to him the following saying, 
very modest as to his own productions, and full 
of reverence for the Maeonian bard, " that his 
pieces were but scraps from the magnificent ban- 
quets of Homer, "f This acknowledgment, though 
couched in terms which none but himself would 
have applied to his own splendid poetry, was fun- 
damentally just ; for there is no doubt that he had 
Btudied Homer deeply, that he had regarded him 
as his model, and that the orientalisms which, as 
Fabriciufl has remarked, more frequently occur in 
him than in any other Attic writer, were a result 
of this preference. 

That he composed tragedies in his retirement is 
certain, for Atlicnaus accuses him of having fallen 
into Sicilianisms in some of them; and one is par- 

* AthenaMis, viii. 8. 
| [bid. 



( 82 ) 

ticularly recorded as having been composed out 
of compliment to Hiero, shortly after he arrived at 
his court. 

The cause to which his death is ascribed, though 
mentioned by various authors, and made the sub- 
ject of ancient gems, wears a fabulous aspect. An 
eagle, it is pretended, as it hovered over a rocky 
spot where he was seated, wrapt in meditation, let 
fall from its *t^lons a tortoise, which, lighting di- 
rectly upon Ifis bald head, fractured the skull. It 
is added, with ludicrous gravity, that the eagle 
mistook the crown of his head for a piece of rock, 
and intended to break upon it the shell of the 
tortoise. 

His death is assigned to the eighty-first Olym- 
piad, when he was in his sixty-ninth year. 

His remains were honoured by Hiero with a 
distinguished funeral, which was signalized by 
tragic contests. Resplendent as was the poetic 
fame of iEschylus, he valued himself still more on 
the glory he had acquired at Marathon, and there- 




fi-oya an antique Gem. 



( 83 ) 

fore ordered the following Epitaph to be inscribed 
upon his tomb.* 

Al<T)^v\ov Evfopiiovog Adrjvalov to£e kevOel 
^Ivfjfia KaTCMpQifjiEvov 7rvpo(f>6poio TiXag' 

AX^tjp CEvcvKi/JOy Mapadwvwv aXaog av e'Liroi, 
Kat l3adv\aiT)]EiQ Alijcog ETTicrTafxevog. 

This tomb covers the remains of ^Eschylus the Athe- 
nian, THE SON OF EUPHORION, WHO DIED AT GeLAS, FERTILE 

in corn. The glades of Marathon would attest his 

DISTINGUISHED VALOUR, AND THE LONG-HAIRED MeDE WHO 
PROVED IT. 



* There is scarcely an Athenian oration in Thucy- 
dides, but refers to Marathon, either directly or by 
implication ; and in much later times the well known 
apostrophe of Demosthenes to the heroes who had 
perished there, proves that the Orator well knew he was 
touching a chord in the bosoms of his countrymen, the 
sympathetic vibration of which was certain. Even 
modern patriotism thrills at the mention of Marathon. 
Johnson's fine passage need not be quoted, because 
it is stored in the memory of every cultivated English- 
man. In this point of view, Pericles spoke with the 
force of prediction when he said, in the course of his 
noble funeral oration, " the whole earth is the sepul- 

g2 



( 84 ) 

The distinction acquired by iEschylus in the 
sphere of the drama, naturally fired the ambition 
of men of genius to enter on the same career. 

Allusion has already been made to Sophocles as 
a successful rival of iEschylus. He was just rising 
into notice when the fame of the former approached 
its maturity. The first mention of him is coupled 
with the fact, that he was selected, from his personal 
accomplishments, to form one of a chorus of dis- 
tinguished youths, who sung a paean round the 
public trophy which was erected in Athens in 
honour of the battle of Marathon. # 

iEschylus was one of the most distinguished of 
the heroes who were then hailed by the grateful 
plaudits of their countrymen. If his eye lighted 



chre of illustrious men, nor is the epitaph, engraven on 
tomb-stones, in their native land, the sole guardian of 
their fame, but the memory of their actions in other 
countries, forms a more faithful record in the heart, 
than any that human hands can fabricate. " — Vide 
Thucyd. lib. ii. 43. 
* Vita Soph. Ed. Brunck. 



( 85 ) 

on the graceful youth, how little did he think that 
he beheld in him the most formidable rival of his 
fame. 

Inferior to iEschylus in those qualities of genius 
which tend to the sublime and the terrible, and 
seldom rivalling his coruscations of lyrical splen- 
dour, Sophocles excelled him in the judicious 
selection of his incidents, in a more correct deli- 
neation of the workings of the passions, in the 
skilful development of his plots, and in producing, 
by a train of circumstances apparently natural in 
their connection, the most startling coincidences. 

He also restricted within more judicious limits 
the choral interludes, which, in the dramas of 
iEschylus, often ran into prolixity. Aristotle 
refers to great improvements introduced by him in 
scenical decoration and invention. His style was 
dignified, and, at the same time, so mellifluous, 
that it procured for him the appellation of the 
Attic Bee. He was extremely popular with his 
contemporaries, to whom he was endeared by the 
fine qualities of his heart, as well as by his distin- 



( 86 ) 

guished acquirements. His life was prolonged to 
the great age of ninety-one, and when, after attain- 
ing eighty years, he had to defend himself against 
a charge of mental imbecility, he put his accusers 
to the blush by publicly reading his CEdipus Co- 
lonceus, one of the most perfect of his tragedies, 
and then recently composed. His judges, at the 
close of this remarkable defence, dissolved the as- 
sembly, and conducted him home in triumph. 

About the time that iEschylus quitted Athens, 
appeared Euripides, the last in order of time of 
the illustrious trio of the Greek tragedians. 

He enjoyed every advantage of education afforded 
by that accomplished age. In philosophy, Anax- 
agoras was his instructor, and in eloquence, Pro- 
dicus, the most celebrated sophist of the day. 
According to Aulus Gellius he entered on the tra- 
gic contest at the early age of eighteen, but the 
higher authority of the Arundel marble fixes it at 
the eighty-first Olympiad, when he was in his 
twenty-fifth year. 

During a period of forty-six years he proved a 




: 



"J-'":.::'- : ■■.-:_.:■'....._..:' .'LL: 







( 87 ) 

powerful rival to Sophocles, and soared far above 
the competition of other contemporary poets, 
though the unjust caprice or venality of the judges 
occasionally bestowed the prize on rivals far his 
inferiors. To the improvements already engrafted 
by Sophocles on the tragic art, it was his ambition 
to add by higher degrees of dramatic effect, or 
scenical illusion, by all the artifices of polished 
diction, and by a greater variety in the music, and 
the lyrical measures of his choruses. 

In the loftier qualities of the tragic muse he was 
unequal to either of his predecessors — to iEschylus, 
in the strong delineation of individual character, in 
masculine vigour of style, in fervour and sublimity 
of imagination — to Sophocles, in the texture of his 
plots, in majesty of sentiment, and of language ; 
and to both in the able adaptation of his choral 
odes to the peculiarities of his subjects; but he 
was eminently successful in depicturing scenes or 
emotions of tenderness and feeling, in the easy 
and natural conduct of his dialogue, in an orato- 
rical flow of style, and in a felicitous admixture of 



( 88 ) 

moral reflections with the course of his subjects. 
These he brought into his tragedies from the school 
of Socrates, and the philosopher, it is said, took 
pleasure in witnessing their representation. His 
dramas frequently exhibit strange contrasts of ex- 
quisite beauties, and revolting absurdities. After 
deeply touching the heart by the devotion, the 
delicacy, and the tenderness of conjugal affection 
in his Alceste, for instance, he disgusts the taste 
of his readers towards the conclusion of the piece, 
by the low buffoonery with which he has invested 
the character of Hercules. 

Often he is betrayed by his oratorical powers 
into a redundancy unsuited to the language of pas- 
sion, which is broken, short, and exclamatory. 

On some occasions he approaches the elevation 
of iEschylus. The scene which paints the feelings 
of Orestes (in the tragedy bearing his name,) when 
haunted and pursued by the furies, is one of the 
finest pieces of sublime poetic painting in any lan- 
guage. 

He has been severely censured for violating the 



( .89 ) 

original dignity of tragedy, by seductive effeminacy 
of language and sentiment, by the occasional in- 
troduction of amatory descriptions deficient in 
delicacy, by painting in some of his dramas the 
progress of incestuous attachments, and by the 
unrestrained use both of musical and metrical arts, 
excitive of sensual passions. 

After a long career of active, and often success- 
ful competition, he incurred, like iEschylus, volun- 
tary exile, and ended his days at the court of 
Archelaus, king of Macedon, from whom he expe- 
rienced the kindest and most distinguished recep- 
tion. 

Domestic infelicity, and disappointed ambition, 
are conjectured to have concurred in leading him 
to renounce Athens. 

His death is ascribed to a cruel cause, laceration 
by ferocious hounds, which are said to have seized 
upon the unfortunate poet, as he rambled through 
the recesses of a solitary wood. 

The renown of this poet pervaded Greece in an 
extraordinary degree, and a remarkable instance 



( 90 ) 

of it is mentioned by Plutarch* as having occurred 
after the total defeat and capture of the Athenian 
army in Sicily, under Nicias, when every soldier 
who could repeat a line of Euripides was excepted 
from the cruel fate which befel his comrades in 
arms. 

The respective merits of these three great trage- 
gedians was a favourite subject of discussion at 
Athens. 

With the lower classes, Euripides seems to have 
been the favourite. The simplicity of his dialogue, 
and the triteness of his moral aphorisms, brought 
him within the level of their capacity. But with 
men of cultivated taste, the lofty inspiration of 
iEschylus, and the chastened grandeur of Sopho- 
cles, secured them the preference. Peculiar reve- 
rence was also felt towards the former as the ac- 
knowledged father of tragedy, and a signal in- 
stance of it was given after his death by a law for- 
bidding the repetition of any pieces in the theatre, 

* Plutarch in Nycia. 



( 91 ) 

excepting those of JEschylus. In process of time 
the same honour was paid to his two rivals. 

A very witty and animated debate on the re- 
spective merits of iEschylus and Euripides is pre- 
served in the latter part of the " Frogs" of Aristo- 
phanes. # 

The scene is laid in the Pagan world of spirits, 
by one of the customs of which, it is feigned, that 
men, illustrious in any art or profession, occupy 
there a rank and station, conformable to their 
genius and acquirements in the world above. 

The question in debate is, which of the two 
above named bards has the best claim to the seat 



* Since the first pages of this Dissertation were 
committed to the press, the Quarterly Review, for 
February, was published, in one of the Articles of which, 
on the Greek Dramatic Poets, this self-same scene from 
the " Frogs" is ably described ; and illustrated by a 
spirited translation of some of its most remarkable 
passages. It is flattering to the author to find himself 
on various points in accordance with the learned 
writer of that article. 



( 92 ) 

of honour, or president's chair, in the Prytaneum # 
of the shades. 

Till the arrival of Euripides, iEschylus had held 
it in undisputed supremacy, but it is now confi- 
dently claimed by the former; the discussion be- 
comes warm, and in order to put a stop to the 
growing confusion, Pluto orders that the question 
shall be gravely debated in his presence. Sopho- 
cles upon this, gives notice that should the pre- 
scriptive claims of JEschylus be no longer allowed, 
he himself will contend for the post of honour, 
for though he reverently yields it to the father of 
tragedy, he entirely disallows the pretensions of 
Euripides. Much of humorous and mock prepa- 
ration for the encounter takes place, after which 
the chorus breaks forth thus: — 



* The Prytaneum was a large public hall at Athens, 
in which (among other uses to which it was applied) 
it was customary to honor any citizen who had ren- 
dered signal services to the state with a public enter- 
tainment. 



( 93 ) 

How will the bard of furious soul, 

Swell with indignant rage, 
His glaring eyes in phrenzy roll 
To see his wily foe preparing to engage ! 
Grand shall now the contest be 
Of glittering phraseology: 
While one shall every strained conceit refine, 
Paring each thought, and polishing each line, 
The other, scorning art's dull track to try, 
Shall pour his genuine thoughts in loftiest poesy. 
His bristly neck aloft he'll rear, 
And shake his shaggy mane, 
A low'ring frown his brow shall wear, 

Fierce emblem of disdain. 
While he in furious mood along, 
Shall roll his complicated song, &c. &c. 
***** 
***** 

With powers of pliability, 

And tuneful tongue the other fraught, 
Studious of smoothest harmony, 

Shall twist and torture ev'ry thought, 

While with superior subtilty, 

In many a nicely laboured phrase, 

Champing the bit of envy, he 

Retorts upon his rival's sounding lays.* 

* Dunster's Translation of the Frogs. 



( 94 ) 

Then follows a scene in which Euripides taunts 
his rival with his lofty and turgid phraseology, 
his swelling conceptions, and his imaginary mon- 
sters. 

iEschylus retorts upon him as dealing in noto- 
rious plagiarisms, artificial conceits, and demora- 
lizing subjects. 

Several successive scenes occur, in which each 
criticises with much wit and irony the subjects, 
characters, and diction of the other, and parodies 
with great felicity some of the prologues and cho- 
ruses in the most celebrated tragedies of his rival. 
The comedian is evidently, throughout, the parti- 
san of iEschylus, and therefore gives him the ad- 
vantage in this war of words. As Euripides was 
a friend of Socrates, to whose party Aristophanes 
was most inimical, he never appears disposed to 
do him common justice, but frequently introduces 
his name in his dramas, in a tone of ridicule or 
sarcasm. No translation can do justice to the 
lucid beauty of style, and the pointed wit of the 
original in the scenes alluded to, but the scholar, 



( 95 ) 

who studies them with a competent knowledge of 
the tragedies of the contending poets, will be 
greatly amused and interested. 

One of the accusations urged by iEschylus de- 
serves to be adverted to, on account of its moral 
force and dignity. He charges Euripides with 
having degraded tragedy from the elevated sphere 
in which he had fixed it, 

" High actions and high passions best describing ;" 

and of rendering it the vehicle of exciting amatory 
and licentious feelings. Euripides defends himself 
by the trite remark, that he had only painted such 
stories as he found them ; upon which iEschylus 
asserts, in lofty strains, that instruction is the 
proper end and aim of poetry, and that it behoves 
a poet rather to hide tales of infamy, than to cor- 
rupt the public ear with their pernicious details. 

The moment of decision at length arrives. 
Bacchus, who is present, and who, as the god of 
tragedy, is appealed to as judge between the poets, 



( 96 ) 

passes sentence in favour of iEschylus, and com- 
missions him to repair again to the upper world, 
to vindicate the original dignity of the tragic muse. 
The poet prepares to obey, and desires that in his 
absence the seat of honour may be occupied by 
Sophocles. 

What is called the old comedy, discharged in 
those days at Athens some of the functions which 
the public press now assumes in England. It 
dealt in bold and biting satire upon public men 
and measures; it zealously embraced the interests 
of one or other of the rival factions which divided 
public opinion, and it panegyrised, or censured 
with the utmost freedom, poets and philosophers, 
magistrates and senators, military or naval officers, 
according to the opinions or prejudices of the 
writer. 

Thus far, it may easily be conceived, that, in a 
country where no reviews or newspapers existed to 
give vent to public opinion, comedy might often 
exercise a useful and wholesome influence on 
passing events. 



( 97 ) 

But it went still further in point of license, for 
not only were prominent individuals thus attacked, 
but they were brought upon the stage by their 
names, without any ceremony ; and even their fea- 
tures, dress, and gait, were so mimicked by masks, 
and other scenical devices, that none could possibly 
mistake them. 

The tyranny thus exercised became at length 
so generally odious, that a law was passed making 
it highly penal to introduce any person by name 
into such pieces ; but what could no longer be 
effected by direct means was brought about by al- 
lusions and approximation. A new era of comedy 
thus arose, in which imaginary characters, often 
intended as representatives of real ones, were in- 
troduced, and on such occasions the ingenuity of 
authors in framing was responded to by that of 
the public in tracing out the intended resem- 
blances. 

Hence it follows that comedy casts a very dis- 
tinct light upon the state of manners, parties, and 
politics at Athens in the most interesting period of 
her history. Aristophanes, the writer from whose 
pages this light is principally reflected, was an ex- 



( 98 ) 

traordinary compound of qualities the most oppo- 
site, and of talents the most diversified. 

Of some of his dramas such is the acknowledged 
licentiousness, that it can argue no false delicacy 
in the author to avow his ignorance of their de- 
tails. Lewd ribaldry ceases not to be polluting 
and detestable from wearing the livery of a learned 
language. 

Even in the most unexceptionable, many pas- 
sages of great coarseness and low buffoonery occur. 
The dignified style and the moral tone of tragedy 
among the Greeks, were the very antipodes to the 
license of their comedy, which, regarded as a com- 
ment on Athenian manners, indicates their extreme, 
corruption. But whilst reprobating with a just 
indignation the coarse language, and the revolting 
indecency of the ancient comedians, do we suffici- 
ently remember that the thin veil under which the 
licentious allusions of the modern stage are affected 
to be concealed, is only another, and a more in- 
sidious mode of communicating moral pollution, 
and that the insinuations of vice are often the most 
fraught with danger, when the most studiously 
divested of heathen grossness ? 



( 99 ) 

It ought, however, to be added, that this gross- 
ness was partly caused by the want of female in- 
fluence on manners in Greece. Custom condemned 
the ladies to a species of Oriental seclusion, and 
society was thus not only deprived of its greatest 
charm, but also of that salutary restraint, which a 
due regard to their feelings imposes upon language 
in modern company. But the qualities which en- 
title Aristophanes to attention, in spite of these 
dark blemishes, belong only to genius the most 
brilliant, and to an intellect the most superior. 
He is not merely a poet of the most diversified 
powers, but a statesman, a satirist, and a critic of 
great acuteness and penetration. To students of 
history, or of man, his political and satirical dramas 
cannot fail to prove highly interesting, from their 
minute and expressive portraiture of the manners 
and habits of the Athenians of all orders ; while 
the politician may trace in them the fatal con- 
sequences, both to social order and to rational 
liberty, from the struggles of factions and parties, 
in a government purely democratic. Hence it was 
h 2 



( ioo ) 

that Plato, in reply to various inquiries of Diony- 
sius of Syracuse relative to the constitution and 
manners of the Athenians, sent him the works of 
Aristophanes ; and to the same redeeming qualities 
must be ascribed the predilection for his writings, 
said to have been entertained by St. Chrysos- 
tom. Though corrupted by familiar acquaintance 
with vice and profligacy, and hurried down the 
tide of dissoluteness by conformity to general 
custom, he recurred in imagination with keen 
regret to the examples of a purer age, and ap- 
pealed, in this spirit, to the honor and patriotism 
which rendered Athens illustrious in the age of 
Conon and Miltiades. The poetry of elevated 
sentiment, of graceful ease, of elegant playfulness, 
and of brilliant fancy, mingles in his pages with 
that of wild buffoonery and cruel personality. 
From low ribaldry his dialogue often emerges into 
a style polished and graceful, elegant and simple, 
seasoned with Attic salt, enlivened by wit and 
pleasantry. Occasionally he even soars in his 
choruses into the sublime of sentiment and de- 



( ioi ) 

scription, or gives the rein to his sportive and 
luxuriant imagination in depicturing scenes of 
ancient mythology, or fiction, with a richness and 
glow of colouring somewhat akin to the playful 
and charming effusions to be found in Milton's 
Comus. 

The boldness and variety of his allegories, and 
his ingenious personifications of abstract qualities, 
are curious features in his poetry, and form the 
vehicle of some of his most biting satire. 

So close is the connection of many of his 
dramas with the state of parties and manners at 
Athens, in the age of Pericles, that a brief analy- 
sis of two among them, which more peculiarly re- 
flect light on these topics, will be rather in the 
nature of an episode, than a digression. The 
" Knights" and the " Clouds" are the two selected 
for this purpose. The first is a political satire 
upon the evils of democracy, the last is a playful 
criticism on the fashionable system of education 
and philosophy at Athens. 

It must be borne in mind that the Athenian 



( 102 ) 

constitution, as organized by Solon, was a demo- 
cracy, in which the sovereign power was vested in 
a popular assembly, where every freeman had an 
equal right to speak and vote. To guard against 
the excesses of popular license under such a form 
of government, he formed an aristocracy, based on 
property, to whom all civil offices were restricted, 
and who exercised great controlling powers in 
the administration of affairs, as members of two 
councils, the one the court of Areopagus, the other 
a senate, subsequently termed " The Five Hun- 
dred" These mixed principles of government 
were in many respects unskilfully blended, and, 
as a natural consequence, fierce struggles for pre- 
eminence often occurred between the popular and 
the aristocratic factions. The qualification of 
property for office, established by Solon, was abo- 
lished by Aristides, soon after the close of the 
Persian war, and the honors of the state indis- 
criminately opened to the ambition of citizens of 
every degree. Thenceforwards the populace as- 
sumed a more active part in the business of the 



( 103 ) 

general assembly, and the government became in- 
creasingly democratic. The privileges of the aris- 
tocracy were still further abridged by Pericles, 
who courted popular favour as a stepping stone 
to the supremacy at which his ambition aspired. 
Though the democratic faction was, in general, 
kept at bay by the influence of his commanding 
talents and sage policy, popular license not un- 
frequently vented itself, through the comic poets, 
in coarse jokes upon his person and manners, and 
in bitter invectives on his public measures. After 
his death, that faction gained an entire ascendancy. 
The workshop and the manufacture were deserted 
for the general assembly ; property and rank lost 
their due control, and political influence was only 
to be obtained by pandering to the passions, or 
flattering the vices of the populace. The deference 
which had formerly been paid to a Miltiades, and 
a Cimon, men equally illustrious for rank and 
talent, was usurped by factious demagogues, of 
coarse but ready eloquence, of levelling but selfish 
principles. From Lysicles and Eucrates, the one 



( 104 ) 

a seller of tow, the other a dealer in cattle, 
the democratic sceptre at length descended to 
Cleon, * a tanner, who, for several years, was 
the popular idol. Of extraordinary impudence, 
but little courage, fluent in the assembly, but 
irresolute in the field, boastful of his integrity, 
yet skilled in all the arts of peculation, a vehe- 
ment asserter of popular rights, and a fierce 
calumniator of men of rank and property, in 
profession a patriot, but practically the slave of 
selfishness, he became, by force of caballing and 
intrigue, the head of a formidable party, and hur- 



* Some of the leading features in the description of 
Cleon are from Mitford's Greece. For his reference to 
the above-named demagogues the author is indebted to 
Mr. Mitchell, the learned translator of some of the 
comedies of Aristophanes, and he gladly avails himself 
of this opportunity of acknowledging that the Prelimi- 
nary Discourse to that work has much aided his re- 
searches on various particulars connected with the 
dramatic literature of Athens. Its portraiture of the 
philosophical coteries of that capital, and of the state 
of manners and parties, is fraught with elegant and 
profound learning, and with the touches of a vigorous 
and expressive pencil. 



( 105 ) 

ried Athens, by his infatuated councils, into mea- 
sures which reduced her to anarchy, and proved 
the precursors of her political degradation. 

To attack such a man with effect in the meridian 
of his power required no small degree of skill and 
courage. The task was undertaken by Aristo- 
phanes, and successfully accomplished in a drama 
entitled the " Knights," or, as Wieland calls it, 
the Demagogues, the object of which is to ex- 
pose the profligacy and baseness of Cleon, and 
to incite the Athenians to assert their independ- 
ence. The sovereign people itself is personified 
by the appellation of Demus (i. e. people), in the 
character of an irascible and capricious old man, 
vicious and credulous, the dupe of charlatans, and 
governed at the present moment by this very 
Cleon, who is introduced as one of his domes- 
tics. Nicias and Demosthenes,* the leaders of 



* It is scarcely needful to state that the Demosthenes 
alluded to, was not the orator of that name, but a 
general of considerable reputation. 



( 106 ) 

the aristocratic party, are also introduced as slaves 
of Demus, and impatient of their sufferings under 
the caprices of Cleon. An oracle informs them 
that their oppressor is to be put down by a sausage- 
vender, and happening soon after to meet with one, 
they intreat him to undertake their cause, assuring 
him that he is the destined head of the Athenian 
republic, and all its dependencies ; that he shall 
trample under foot the senate, cashier generals, 
and revel in luxury, undisputed Lord of the Pry- 
taneum. The astonished sausage-seller at first - 
declines the dangerous pre-eminence, and honestly 
avows his utter ignorance and incapacity ; but is 
at last persuaded that to act the statesman is a 
much easier task than he had been led to imagine. 
The scene in which this discussion occurs is so 
amusing, and in a style of such biting sarcasm 
upon the levelling tendencies of democracy, that 
we will attempt a translation of some parts of it. 

Speakers — Sausage-vender and Demosthenes.* 

S. V. — I should like to know how it is possible for 
me, a mere sausage-vender, to become a great man. 

* Aristoph. Equites, 180, &c. ed. Brunck. 



( 107 ) 

D. — Why, you possess the very qualities that fit 
you for it ; you are unprincipled, you are of the canaille, 
and a desperado. 

S. V. — I really deem myself unworthy to fill a place 
of such power. 

D. — Pooh, pooh! why proze about worthiness? — 
You appear to me conscious of being something supe- 
rior. Surely your parents were honourable and up- 
right. 

S. V. — On the contrary, they were infamous. 

D. — Well then, you may bless your stars — that every 
qualification for a statesman centers in you. 

S. V. — But my good friend, I know nothing of 
learning beyond my letters, and even these very im- 
perfectly.* 

D. — So much the better. Learning is needless for 
a demagogue, and good principles an incumbrance. 
'Tis better to be ignorant and brutish ; therefore dont 
reject that which the gods have decreed to you by 

oracles. 

***** 

S. V. — The oracles call me! I am astonished it 
should be thought possible for me to govern the coun- 
try. 

D. — Nothing is more easy ; go on exactly as you 

* The Greek literally says, " I know nothing of music 
beyond my letters;" but music is here put for education in 
general, which at Athens began with musical science, accom- 
panied by grammar. 



( 108 ) 

do now ; embroil state affairs just as you chop up meat 
for your sausages, win over the mob at all hazards, 
cajole them by high-seasoned words ; nature seems to 
have destined you for a demagogue. You have a 
deafening voice, you are a scoundrel-born ; you have 
all the slang of the forum. In short you are a ready 
furnished politician. The oracles, even that of Apollo, 
fix their mark upon you. Assert then the garland — 
pour out a libation to folly — and have at your ad- 
versary.* 

Presently Cleon appears, and terror seizes the 
sausage-seller, but reassured by the knights (an 
order of men between the high aristocracy and the 
people who form the chorus to the piece) he proves, 

* When democracy was at its height in Athens, the ordi- 
nary state of society very much resembled that of a town in 
England on the eve of a fiercely-contested election. The first 
impression, observes Mr. Mitchell, of a reader of the " Knights," 
would naturally be that a state so circumstanced could not 
exist a single week; but the earlier events of the French revo- 
lution prove that the poet may have been within the limits of 
truth, caustic as he is ; for " the Demus of Aristophanes then 
became a real person," and the parts of Cleon, &c. were played 
with an easiness and suppleness that fully justify the portraits 
of the comic writer. Try democracy in your own house only 
for a week, said Lycurgus to one who censured the Spartan 
constitution, and then judge for yourself how far it is suited 
to the purposes of good government. 



( 109 ) 

in a fierce war of words, an overmatch for him 
both in the senate and in the assembly of the peo- 
ple. The dialogue between them is a tissue of 
wild wit, fierce invective, and coarse buffoonery. 
At length the sovereign people is disabused. Cleon 
is turned out of office. Demus is delivered from 
thraldom, and reassuming the habits, sentiments 
and manners of ancient times, towers in the dignity 
of pristine virtue. The piece concludes with a 
splendid apostrophe to what Athens was when she 
won the laurels of Marathon, and reverenced the 
institutions of her ancestors. 

Much of Attic salt, and many brilliant passages, 
occur in the " Knights," particularly one in which 
the poet describes the fates and fortunes of his 
predecessors in the comic art. As respects the wit 
of Aristophanes, it may in general be remarked, 
that more than half of it must be lost to the 
moderns from their ignorance of the sources of 
innumerable allusions, on which the edge of his 
irony, or the flashes of his fancy depended. 

Cleon was so great an idol of the populace that 



( no ) 

when the drama was brought upon the stage, no 
artist dared to form a mask of his features, nor 
any actor to personate him, upon which the poet 
himself, disguising his face with wine lees, as in 
the ancient days of tragedy, performed the part 
with a courage equal to the spirit of the satire. 

The consequences were curious. General at- 
tention being thus directed to the public conduct 
of Cleon, he was fined for peculation ; but such 
was his empire over the mob that he quickly be- 
came their darling again, and rode buoyant on the 
waves of popularity. 

The next drama, of which we shall offer a brief 
analysis, is " the Clouds," on which the heavy 
charge long rested of having caused the cruel fate 
of Socrates, by directing against him, as an atheist, 
and a demoralizer of the youth of Athens, popular 
odium. But the charge, as respects any formal or 
direct influence of this description, has been re- 
butted by evidence demonstrating that its repre- 
sentation took place twenty-three years* before the 

* Vide Brunckii, Not. at Aristoph. Nubes. 



( 111 ) 

philosopher's trial and condemnation. The sup- 
posed coincidence of these events was probably a 
consequence of the grave reply to the witty sar- 
casms of the comedian, which Plato in his " Apo- 
logy" puts into the mouth of Socrates, but the 
proper inference is, that the wit of the " Clouds" 
was so fresh in the recollection of the Athenian 
public, even after a lapse of many years, as to merit 
the passing notice of the philosopher. iElian, the 
most credulous and careless of historians, furnished 
the groundwork of the story in question. The 
" Clouds " is a higher class of drama than the 
" Knights," both in the general art of its construc- 
tion, and in the disposition of its parts. It at- 
tacks, in the person of Socrates, the doctrines of 
the sophists, who were at this time the fashion- 
able instructors of the Athenian youth. The inci- 
dents are amusing. Strepsiades, a rich gentleman 
farmer of Attica, is brought into great pecuniary 
difficulties by the extravagance of a high-born 
wife, and the prodigality of a son who cares for 
nothing but horse and chariot-racing. Dunned 



( 112 ) 

and harassed, he bethinks himself at last of ap- 
plying to Socrates to be instructed in the art of 
circumventing his creditors, as well as to be ini- 
tiated in the mysteries of a philosophy in which 
he gives him credit for being an adept, which can 
prove evil good, and good evil. He finds the phi- 
losopher too much absorbed in hypermundane 
speculations to listen to his queries, and all he can 
extract from him is an offer to summon the Clouds, 
the only deities whom he professes to revere, and 
by which the poet intends to personify the abstrac- 
tions of a visionary mind, to unfold to the appli- 
cant the resources of wisdom. The invocation 
addressed to them, and the description of their de- 
scent, are happy examples of burlesque sublimity, 
and glow with the brilliant tints of the richest 
poetic colouring. 

The ensuing dialogue is very amusing. The 
head of Strepsiades is full of his debts and diffi- 
culties, that of Socrates of airy abstractions, and 
logical subtleties. They interrupt, contradict, and 
misunderstand each other continually, till both 



( 113 ) 

parties became highly impatient. Brunck, on 
the authority of Fontenelle, notices the similarity 
between this scene and some of those in Moliere's 
Bourgeois Gentilhomme, " Le dessein de cette piece, 
(says Fontenelle,) est fort plaisant. Strepsiade est 
le vrai Bourgeois Gentilhomme, par la difficulte 
qu'il a d'apprendre ; par ses meprises continuelles, 
et par la naivete avec laquelle il rend ce qu'il a 
appris. II resemble fort aussi a George Dandin, 
quand il se plaint d'avoir epouse une femme de la 
ville, lui qui etoit un homme de la campagne." 

It has already been observed that the intellectual 
ferment which prevailed at Athens soon after the 
termination of the Persian war, more or less per- 
vaded all Greece. The most celebrated of the 
sophists were natives of the neighbouring states or 
islands, and came to Athens either in the quality 
of Ambassadors, or to give lectures on rhetoric and 
philosophy, for attendance on which very high fees 
were exacted. Masters of a subtle and bewilder- 
ing logic, they professed to argue with equal facility 
on either side of a question, while they charmed 
i 



( 114 ) 

the ear by the antithetical brilliancy of a mere- 
tricious eloquence. When they appeared in public 
they were encircled by admiring followers, and 
were petted and courted in the convivial circles 
of Athens with the most flattering marks of dis- 
tinction. Of one of the most celebrated among 
them, Hippias of Elis, it is said that he courted 
applause by appearing at the Olympic games, and 
astonishing the spectators not only by an imposing 
display of his skill in argumentation, his literary 
acquirements, and wonderful memory, but by the 
splendour of his robe, and by all the little arts of 
personal vanity and pretension. Of Prodicus of 
Ceos, Plato often makes mention, and so great was 
his celebrity that, wiser than Prodicus, had grown 
at Athens into a proverbial expression. 

To the pernicious influence of the doctrines and 
tastes inculcated by this school, Aristophanes as- 
cribes the growth of a general disregard among 
the higher classes for the institutions of their an- 
cestors, and the prevalence of an ostentatious per- 
sonal vanity, and a disgraceful effeminacy of 



( 115 ) 

habits and manners. The dialogue of the Clouds, 
at its outset, is of the burlesque description, but 
with the further progress of the drama a grave 
discussion occurs between the personified spirits of 
the ancient and the modern system, under the titles 
of dix.cuo$ and uhxos, in other words, the " Just" 
and the " Unjust." 

With the exception of some coarse expressions, 
the part of the " Just" is sustained throughout this 
dialogue with a moral force and dignity, and a 
poetical beauty, which place it among the finest 
passages of didactic composition in the whole circle 
of classical poetry, though with a strange perversity, 
the poet, after giving the victory to him in argu- 
ment, makes him avow that he is confuted. # 

The force of the original is considerably diluted 
by the verbosity of Mr. Cumberland's translation, 

* There is some reason to conjecture that the con- 
tradiction is to be ascribed to the carelessness of trans- 
cribers, as no less than three out of four of the ma- 
nuscripts quoted by Brunck, assign this confession of 
defeat to Strepsiades, not to the " Just." 

\2 



( 116 ) 

but the following extracts will at least give an idea 
of the spirit of some parts of the passage. The 
" Just" praises in eloquent terms the education of 
ancient times, founded in modesty, temperance and 
justice, and connected with manly and martial ex- 
ercises and habits, tending to invigorate both mind 
and body. To which the " Unjust" replies, 

Why these are maxims obsolete and stale ; 

Worm-eaten rules, coeval with the hymns 

Of old Ceceydas and Buphonian feasts — 

Just. — Yet so were train'd the heroes that embru'd 

The field of Marathon with hostile blood ; 

* * * * sfe 

Therefore be wise, young man, and turn to me, 
Turn to the better guide, so shall you learn 
To scorn the noisy forum, shun the bath,-)- 
The scene impure detest, the taunter spurn, 
And yield precedence due to hoary age ; 

f The warm bath is meant, as explained in the verse 1040 
of the original. 

Kairot riva ypio/JLrjp ej^wj/, -ipeyetQ ra depfia \erpa ; 

In this passage I have taken the liberty of substituting for 
seven lines in Mr. Cumberland's translation, four, which appear 
to me to express more perfectly the sense of the original. 



( 117 ) 

Nor wound a parent's heart, nor stoop to ought 
Which purity, and virtuous shame condemn. 

***** 

Unj. — Aye, my brave youth, do follow these fine 
rules, 
And learn by them to be as mere a swine, 
Driveller and dolt as any of the sons 
Of our Hippocrates. 

Just. — Not so, but fair and fresh in youthful bloom 
Among our young athletics you shall shine ; 
Not in the forum, loit'ring time away 
In gossip prattle, like our gang of idlers, 
Nor yet in some vexatious paltry suit, 
Wrangling and quibbling in our petty courts ; 
But in the solemn academic grove, 
Crown'd with the modest reed, fit converse hold 
With your collegiate equals ; there serene, 
Calm as the scene around you, underneath 
The fragrant foliage, which the ilex spreads, 
Where the deciduous poplar strews her leaves, 
Where the tall elm-tree, and wide-stretching-plane, 
Sigh to the fanning breeze, you shall inhale 
Sweet odours wafted on the breath of spring. 
This is the regimen that will insure 
A healthful body and a vigorous mind, 
A countenance serene, expanded chest, 
Heroic stature, and a temperate tongue. 
But take these modern masters, and behold 



( 118 ). 

These blessings all reversed : a pallid cheek, 
Shrunk shoulders, chest contracted, sapless limbs, 
A tongue that never rests, and mind debas'd 
By their vile sophistries, perversely taught 
To call good evil, evil good, and be 
A mere Antimachus — the sink of vice. 

Chorus. — Oh sage instructor, how sublime 
These maxims of the former time ! 
How sweet this unpolluted stream 
Of eloquence, how pure the theme ! &c. &c. 

Now this and much more in a similar strain, 
which might be quoted, would have well befitted 
the lips of Socrates, and is in the spirit of the ad- 
vice which Plato in his " Apology" makes him say 
he often gave to the young men of Athens; so 
that Aristophanes in classing him with the sophists, 
and ascribing to his philosophy a demoralizing in- 
fluence, either wilfully sacrificed truth to malevo- 
lence, or, which is far more probable, very imper- 
fectly understood his real opinions. 

So much indeed did the rancour of party viru- 
lence envenom the satirical shafts of the comic 
poets, that it would often be impossible, in the 
absence of other lights, to distinguish between 



( 119 ) 

truth and falsehood ; but here, contemporary wri- 
ters prove of signal service. — A Plato and a 
Xenophon, for instance, have secured to Socrates 
the homage of posterity, in spite of the cruel invec- 
tives of Aristophanes ; while Cleon is scarcely less 
condemned by his coarse satire, than by the dig- 
nified and calm invective of the impartial and philo- 
sophic Thucydides. 

Aided by these various sources of evidence, we 
are introduced into an intimate and minute ac- 
quaintance with the moral and social condition of 
the most extraordinary people, whether they are 
regarded in their literary or political relations, 
which the world has ever beheld. The peep thus 
obtained into the every-day life and habits of the 
Athenians, tends to dissolve the delusive spell with 
which the magic of their genius and taste might 
otherwise dazzle the imagination and pervert the 
judgment. We behold by way of contrast to the 
dignified orator, the brilliant poet, the almost crea- 
tive artist, a busy multitude jostling and contending 
with each other on the arena of avarice, ambition, 



( 120 ) 

or pleasure, in all the littleness of selfish and 
sordid views, in all the frenzy or the craft of poli- 
tical contention, and in all the unrestrained gross- 
ness of sensual depravity. 

While we trace in their history the potent in- 
fluence of free institutions in exciting the energies 
of the mind, and in nourishing ennobling senti- 
ments of national and individual freedom, we are 
no less impressively taught that the excesses of 
liberty tend to a tyranny even more galling than 
despotism itself. 

The general inferences to be drawn from this 
contemplation are not flattering to the hopes of 
those who fondly dream that moral excellence and 
social order are the necessary handmaids of aug- 
menting knowledge and refinement. 

If advancing science, if the culture of taste and 
genius, if the possession of the purest standards 
of both in the works of those immortal writers and 
artists who will draw back to Greece to the latest 
periods of time the admiring and accumulated ho- 
mage of posterity, if all this could secure to a nation 



( 121 ) 

the prevalence of moral excellence, or produce 
human perfectibility, Athens would have been the 
very sanctuary of virtue. But, however much 
these advantages may tend to polish and adorn 
our species, to heighten the charms of social in- 
tercourse, or to minister to the delights of let- 
tered solitude, they may co-exist (and the state 
of Athenian society at this particular period is a 
signal proof of it) with deep moral depravity, and 
with unbridled dissoluteness of manners. Their 
beneficial influence affects the surface of society 
only, they cannot renovate or purify the heart. 
This is the province of the divine philosophy of 
Christianity alone, which, coming from God, is 
pregnant with power to enable its sincere votaries 
not only to believe what he promises, but also to 
obey what he commands. # 

* The learned historian of Greece thus forcibly com- 
ments on the atrocious inhumanity of the polished 
Athenians about this period, in exterminating, on the 
capture of the isle of Melos, its peaceful and unoffend- 
ing inhabitants. " This act, which would have been 
horrible even if perpetrated by a tribe of savages, took 



( 122 ) 

Out of more than seventy tragedies composed 
by iEschylus only seven are extant, but among 
these are three of the most celebrated — the Pro- 
metheus, the Seven Chiefs before Thebes, and the 
Agamemnon. 

Of the remaining four, the Coephorae and the 

place in the peculiar country of philosophy and the fine 
arts, where Pericles had spoken and ruled — where 
Thucydides was then writing — where Socrates was then 
teaching — where Xenophon, Plato, and Isocrates, were 
receiving their education — and where the paintings of 
Parrhasius and Zeuxis, the sculpture of Phidias and 
Praxiteles, the architecture of Callicrates and Ictinus, 
and the sublime and chaste dramas of Sophocles and 
Euripides, formed the delight of the people."— Mit- 
ford's Greece, c. 17. 

Mr. Mitchell's portraiture of the Athenians at the 
same period is as follows. " Cruel and capricious, 
alternately tyrants and slaves — at once sharpers and 
dupes — devoted to the lowest of their appetites — glut- 
tonous and intemperate — idle amid all their activity, 
and sensual amid privation and poverty, the life of the 
common Athenians exhibits a picture at once ridiculous, 
loathsome, and fearful, and shows the extreme cor- 
ruption to which a state may be rapidly conducted by 
the united influence of republicanism and demagogues." 



( 123 ) 

Eumenides formed parts of a trilogy, of which the 
Agamemnon was the first member. The Persas 
was also one member of a trilogy, and the same 
may probably be true of the Suppliants. 

The plot of the Prometheus is extremely simple, 
but it is throughout a splendid poem. The interest 
entirely depends upon its original and expressive 
delineation of the individual character of Prome- 
theus, a giant of the Titanic race, who forms a 
prominent figure in the earlier traditions of Gre- 
cian mythology, and in whose history some ob- 
scure references may be traced to the scriptural 
account of the fall of Man, or of the dispersion at 
Babel. The scene is laid on the borders of the 
ocean among the crags of Caucasus, to one of 
which Prometheus is chained, by order of Jupiter, 
in punishment of rebellious opposition to his will. 
Strength and Force, whom the poet has boldly 
personified, are the instruments of his sufferings, 
which he endures in a spirit of stern independence, 
and of lofty defiance of the powers of the Thun- 
derer, 

" With courage never to submit or yield." 



( 124 ) 

The sombre character of this picture is relieved 
by the entry of a chorus of sea-nymphs, and of 
old Oceanus, who condole with the sufferer and 
recommend submission. His anguish on the one 
hand, and unbending fortitude on the other, are 
placed in powerful contrast, and his colloquy with 
the chorus is fraught with passages equally sublime 
and poetical. 

The character of Prometheus is sustained to the 
last with undiminished force of colouring. Even 
when the thunders and lightnings of vengeance 
roar and flare around him, and the earth gapes at 
his feet, his voice is still heard, as he descends into 
the abyss, uttering amidst the convulsions of nature 
defiance to his tormentor. 

The episode of Io ought not to pass unnoticed 
as an indefensible violation of the unity of action 
in this tragedy. 

The " Seven Chiefs before Thebes," founded on 
the story of Eteocles and Polynices, was a very 
favourite piece both with the Grecian public and 
its author. It is rather a melodrama than a regu- 



( 125 ) 

lar tragedy. In glowing lyrical inspiration, in 
energy of sentiment and expression, in picturesque 
imagery and description, it is not surpassed by any 
drama ancient or modern. Perhaps the spirit and 
energy of Dryden's Alexander's Feast may best 
convey to English readers an idea of the fire, and 
life, and varying style of its choruses, which, with 
the aid of appropriate voices and music, must have 
produced on the auditors no ordinary impression 
and excitement. Plutarch quotes a saying of 
Gorgias the sophist, that Mars not Bacchus in- 
spired this splendid drama.* 

The subject of " the Suppliants" is the landing 
of Danaus and his daughters in Argos, and the 
incident principally turns upon the question, whe- 
ther or not Pelasgus and his subjects will receive 
them hospitably. The descriptive passages are 
picturesque, and the dialogue is animated. The 
daughters of Danaus compose the chorus, and 
their supplicating strains are fraught with fine 
poetry and pious sentiment ; but, on the whole, it 

* Plut. Symp. Quaest. decima. 



( 126 ) 

is a drama devoid of nice art in its construction, 
and a tragedy without a tragical conclusion. 

Schlegel conjectures, and with much plausibility, 
that it is a disconnected member of a trilogy, the 
other parts of which were the Danaidae and the 
Egyptians, two dramas the names alone of which 
are preserved. If so, it might probably be intended 
by the poet as introductory to the tragical action 
of the piece which succeeded it, in which case we 
are devoid of the just materials of candid criticism. 

There is more of nice art in the development of 
the plot of the Coephorae than in most of the 
dramas of iEschylus. But a close comparison 
between it and the Electra of Sophocles, of which 
the subject is the same, will forcibly illustrate the 
improvements introduced by the latter into the 
structure of tragedy. In that of iEschylus, Orestes 
and Electra recognize each other almost imme- 
diately, and this discovery made, the catastrophe 
ensues with obvious facility; but in that of Sopho- 
cles, the interest of the reader is deeply excited by 
the suspension of this recognition, which leads on 



( 127 ) 

to that well-known scene over the supposed ashes 
of Orestes, the pathos and tenderness of which 
are truly exquisite and defy translation. The con- 
cluding scene, in which iEgysthus on lifting the 
veil from the supposed corpse of Orestes is petri- 
fied at beholding the features of Clytemnestra, is 
one of the most tragic incidents that can well be 
imagined. 

The introductory description in the Eumenides 
of Orestes seated as a suppliant at the altar of 
Apollo, at whose instigation he had slain his adul- 
terous mother, yet haunted by the Furies in ven- 
geance of the matricidal act, forms a most terrific 
picture, and illustrates the strange theology of the 
Greeks, who represented hapless mortals as the 
puppets of destiny, and yet punished them as 
though they were free agents. 

The aspect and demeanour of these terrible 
daughters of night are sketched with a spirit and 
a mystery that recalls Shakspeare's wierd sisters. 
Popular superstition in classical, as in Gothic 
ages, conjured up the ghosts of the murdered to 



( 128 ) 

haunt the steps of the murderer, so that the appa- 
rition of the stern shade of Clytemnestra invoking 
vengeance, is by no means out of keeping in this 
appalling picture. The Eumenides, like the Sup- 
pliants is without a tragic close. It greatly flags 
towards the conclusion. The presence of so many 
mysterious beings prepares the imagination for a 
corresponding catastrophe, so that the good hu- 
mour into which the Furies are finally soothed by 
Minerva, and the polished style of panegyric in 
which they hail the land of Attica, and celebrate 
its fame, however gratifying to Athenian vanity, 
appears to all impartial criticism misplaced and 
incongruous. 

The subject of the Persse is the triumph of con- 
federated Greece over the vast force collected by 
Xerxes for its subjugation. The scene is laid in 
Persia. It commences by a fine description of the 
magnitude of the invading host, and the splendor 
of the armies and chiefs composing it, mingled with 
expressions of the deepest anxiety as to their fate. 
This strain is interrupted by the appearance of a 



( 129 ) 

Persian messenger, who announces the dreadful 
catastrophe of its complete rout. Atossa, the 
mother of Xerxes, and widow of Darius, and the 
chorus, break forth upon this intelligence into ex- 
pressions of grief and lamentation. In the depth 
of their despair, they invoke the shade of Darius 
to appear, and to give them counsel. Magical 
rites are employed to raise the spirit of the depart- 
ed monarch, who obeys the summons, and, after 
uniting in their sorrows, advises that no further 
attempt be made to subjugate Greece. But his 
entry and departure, though not wholly devoid of 
mystery and thrilling accompaniments, are too 
much in the style of an ordinary mortal, and no- 
thing results from the incident sufficiently impor- 
tant to account for resorting to such supernatural 
agency. 

The arrival of Xerxes, who gives vent to furious 
grief, concludes the piece. There is no great art 
in the construction of this drama, nor any particu- 
lar merit in the dialogue. But it has one passage 

K 



( 130 ) 

fraught with the highest interest, from its giving a 
more spirited and lively description than is else- 
where to be found of the great naval victory of 
Salamis. 

The main facts closely accord with the narrative 
of Herodotus, but they are here invested with 
the bright hues of poetry, which has seldom kin- 
dled into enthusiasm in memory of a martial ex- 
ploit more glorious or more momentous in its con- 
sequences. The war song of the Greeks, supposed 
to burst forth simultaneously from the commin- 
gling voices of the heroes who crowded their 
ships as they approached the Persian line, so much 
resembles in spirit and sentiment those heart- 
stirring appeals to national patriotism and valour 
of which there are such striking examples in their 
historians and orators, that we can hardly doubt 
that it was the very song of that memorable day. 
Potter has translated it with spirit, and the fol- 
lowing is a specimen. 

" Night advanced, 
But not by secret flight did Greece attempt 



( 131 ) 

T'escape ; the morn, all beauteous to behold, 

Drawn by white steeds, bounds o'er the enlightened 

earth ; 
At once from every Greek with glad acclaim 
Burst forth the song of war, whose lofty notes 
The echo of the island-rocks returned, 
Spreading dismay through Persia's hosts, thus fallen 
From their high hopes : no flight this solemn strain 
Portended, but deliberate valour bent 
On daring battle, whilst the trumpet's sound 
Kindled the flames of war : but when the oars 
(The paean ended) with impetuous force 
Dashed the resounding surges, instant all 
Rush'd on in view, * * * * 

* * * * and now distinct we heard 
From every part the voice of exhortation — 

1 Advance, ye sons of Greece, from thraldom save 
' Your country, — save your wives, your children save, 

* The temples of your gods, the sacred tombs, 

' Where rest your honoured ancestors : this day 

* The common cause of all demands your valour.' " 



The only tragedy which it remains for us to 
notice is the Agamemnon, a translation of which 
is attempted in the following pages. 

Not only does it manifest the powerful sway of 
k2 



( 132 ) 

its author over the sources of pity and terror, but 
the superior skill which he- occasionally displayed 
in the construction of his dramas, for it exemplifies 
by strict unity of action the grand law of Aristote- 
lian criticism — in other words, it exhibits a marked 
beginning, middle, and end. 

The opening speech of the watchman, invoking 
the fiery signal, so long expected, of the fall of 
Troy, and its sudden appearance, form a highly 
picturesque introduction to the subsequent scenes. 

The arrival of the herald, which dissipates all 
doubt as to the import of the signal, and his 
feelings of pious delight at finding himself again 
on Grecian soil, which deny utterance for some 
moments to the glorious intelligence, give conti- 
nuity to the preceding action, and are in them- 
selves touching incidents. 

The return of Agamemnon, the illustrious head 
of the Grecian confederacy, covered with glory, 
to the city and throne of his ancestors, forms an 
imposing central point in the drama, and renders 
the speedy occurrence of his ignominious death 



( 133 ) 

doubly tragic, by the striking contrast of a rapid 
transition from the pinnacle of fortune to its lowest 
degradation. He is painted as the dignified mo- 
narch, and the wise man, no less than the heroic 
chieftain. His experience of the fickleness of for- 
tune, and of the trials of life, has chastened every 
proud or haughty feeling in the retrospect of his 
triumphs, communicating to his sentiments a wise 
moderation, which blends affection with the awe 
inspired by his loftier qualities. 

Clytemnestra's character wants a little softening 
to bring it within the verge of human sympathies. 
She is too implacably hypocritical and perfidious. 
Even the Lady Macbeth of our great dramatist 
appears human when she shrinks for a moment 
from her stern purpose at the sight of features 
which remind her of her father, and after the 
bloody deed has been perpetrated at her instiga- 
tion, she pines beneath the stings of a guilty con- 
science ; but in Clytemnestra there are no such 
relentings — even her allusions to Iphigeneia have 
nothing in them of real tenderness, and to the 



( 134 ) 

last she glories in her crimes with a savage 
ferocity. 

But the part of Cassandra forms the surpassing 
beauty of this drama. It is as original in concep- 
tion as it is perfect in execution. Plato has said 
of Homer that he was the first of tragedians,* by 
which he meant that many of the characters and 
incidents of his poems furnish fruitful subjects for 
the finest tragedies. But neither the Iliad nor 
the Odyssey could have suggested to ^schylus 
the materials of his Cassandra. They emanated 
from the glowing conceptions of his own brilliant 
and excited fancy. As a beautiful and captive 
princess, the daughter of Priam and the sister of 
Hector, we are prepared to take a deep interest in 
her fate, but that interest becomes blended with 
awe, admiration, and terror, when she is viewed in 
her loftier character, that of the frenzied and in- 
spired prophetess, whose eye glances on the dark 



* teal tyyyiopeiv Ojxr]po%' 7roir)TiK(t)Tarov eivai, Kat 7rpw- 
tqv tu>v TpaytofiioTTOiibv. — Plato de Repub. lib. x. 



( 135 ) 

page of destiny, and who sketches what she reads 
there by appalling figures and by expressive ima- 
gery. 

When attention is first excited towards her, she 
appears dejected, statue-like, and overwhelmed by 
sorrow. Clytemnestra, after vain endeavours to 
extract answers from her to various questions 
harshly put, irritated by her inflexible silence, dis- 
dainfully retires, when, after a few moments, the 
tongue of the prophetic princess becomes unloosed, 
and she petrifies or thrills the chorus by her wild 
and boding exclamations. 

The past crimes of the house of Atreus, depic- 
tured in terrific visions, throng her excited imagi- 
nation, and she points, by enigmatical allusions, or 
expressive imagery, to its future fortunes. 

The bloody, banquet given by Atreus to his 
brother Thyestes, at which the flesh of his own 
children, murdered by Atreus in a spirit of impla- 
cable revenge, was served up among the festive 
meats, draws down on Agamemnon according to 
the retributive ideas of the Greeks, that vengeance 



( 136 ) 

which his father had escaped. The spectral forms 
of those children exhibiting to view their entrails 
and their hearts, flit before the eye of her fancy, 
and hover over the parapets of the palace. Cas- 
sandra addresses their hapless forms in a strain of 
wild invocation; and at the same moment the 
mournful dirge of the Furies sounds like the knell 
of death in her ears, and forebodes the approach of 
new woes. 

A change comes over the spirit of her dream. 
Fresh images, shifting in their form, and portend- 
ing the approaching assassination of Agamemnon, 
by turns excite and terrify, animate and subdue 
her. Mingled with these dreadful allusions, are 
various touches of tenderness and feeling, 

" softening the rugged brow 
Of darkness till it smiles." 

The cadence of the verse in these plaintive pas- 
sages assumes the flow of elegy, while the work- 
ings of the prophetic rage are depicted by impe- 
tuous language, by sudden transitions, and by 



( 137 ) 

daring images. At length, exhausted by the vio- 
lence of her own feelings, Cassandra quits the 
scene, when the cries of the dying Agamemnon 
from within, alarm and agitate the chorus. After 
a short pause they approach, and discover Clytem- 
nestra standing over the corpse of her husband, 
still holding in her hand the bloody instrument of 
his death. Her haughty, implacable spirit is finely 
painted, so also are the indignant feelings, and re- 
solute loyalty of the free-born Greeks. But from 
this point the tragedy degenerates into a prolixity 
of dialogue unexpected and tiresome. 

On the whole it may justly be asserted of the 
Agamemnon, that had it been the sole production 
of its author, it would justly entitle him to a place 
in the foremost ranks of genius. 

Perhaps the Bard of Gray has more of the rapt 
and inspired character of the Cassandra of iEschy- 
lus than any similar creation of poetic fancy in an- 
cient or modern times. Johnson and Algarotti 
have supposed the Bard to be an imitation of the 
Nereus of Horace, and there is an obvious ground 
of comparison as respects the form in which the 



( 138 ) 

respective prophecies are delivered, for in the one 
case, the fleet of Paris is arrested in its course by 
the prophetic warnings of the Sea-God, in the 
other, the triumphant march of Edward the First, 
by that of the Bard; but the prophecy of Nereus, 
though delivered in a dignified style, is a tame 
performance, compared with the Bard of Gray; 
the affinity between which and the Cassandra, 
though not formal, is, in more essential points, 
sufficiently striking, consisting in a strong resem- 
blance between their daring transitions, their figu- 
rative allusions, their dark, but expressive hints, 
and their picturesque visions of past or future 
events. The familiarity of our English Pindar 
with the Greek poets is well known, and the train 
of thought, in one of the finest of his odes, that on 
Adversity, may be resolved into a chorus of iEschy- 
lus, as he has himself indicated by the prefixed 
motto. 

A striking affinity might also be traced in various 
particulars between the exquisite portraiture of the 
frenzy of Dido, in Virgil, and that of Cassandra, 
though the obvious diversity of the class of feelings 



( 139 ) 

under which each labours, allows not of a close or 
detailed comparison. 

The French critics, appealing to Aristotle, have 
laid down such rigid rules for the strict observation 
of the unities of action, time, and place, and have 
been so severe on those who have neglected them, 
on Shakspeare especially, that it might naturally 
be supposed the Grecian philosopher had clearly 
and pointedly defined these to be essential canons 
of the drama. But nothing is less true. His 
mind was too liberal, and sagacious, thus severely 
to cramp the march of genius. He does contend 
for unity of action as indispensable — by which he 
means the selection of one leading incident or sub- 
ject, to the able development and impressive con- 
clusion of which all the events introduced shall 
be subordinate. But on the unity of place he says 
nothing, and, as respects the unity of time, he re- 
commends, not insists,* that the action of a drama 



* r] fxev yap (rpaytolia) on /zaXiora tte iparai vwo fiiav 
TTtpioZov f]\iov eivaij rj fxiKpov e^aWocTTetv. — Arist. de 
Poet. sect. 12. 






( 140 ) 

should appear to be comprehended within one 
revolution of the sun. yEschylus, though not an 
undeviating observer of the unity of action, in 
proof of which the episode of Io in the Prometheus 
has already been cited, appears by his existing 
dramas to have in general conformed to it: he 
seldom transgresses the unity of place, but he dis- 
regards the unity of time, when it can only be 
maintained by an undue sacrifice of the needful 
and impressive coincidences of his subject. Thus 
in the Agamemnon, a series of picturesque circum- 
stances usher in the august return of that monarch 
to the palace of his ancestors; their succession 
does not strike the imagination as extravagant, 
though upon reflection it is obvious they could not 
have been crowded within the circle of Aristotle's 
allotted hours. It is the prerogative of such a 
genius as iEschylus or Shakspeare to exhibit the 
standard of allowable deviation from the arbitrary 
enactments of frigid criticism. 

Having now detailed the principal facts which 
illustrate the rise and progress of Grecian Tragedy, 



( 141 ) 

the author will take leave of his subject, by ex- 
pressing an earnest hope that an accurate acquaint- 
ance with the Greek and Roman classics may never 
cease to be regarded by his countrymen as one 
of the most essential branches of a liberal education. 
They are the purest standards of taste and judg- 
ment in literary composition. No productions of 
mind, however ingenious, can command permanent 
admiration, or exercise a really useful influence, 
which conform not in their leading features to 
universal reason, truth, and nature. This con- 
formity forms the talisman, by means of which 
those illustrious writers have satisfied the judg- 
ment, and delighted the imagination of the 
greatest men, in distant and in recent times, in the 
most civilized countries, and under every form of 
government and manners. Nature, it is true, may 
be represented under various, or even contrary 
aspects, and yet be nature still. There is a low 
and disgusting nature, which is the object of re- 
prehension and abhorrence, — there is an ordinary 
degree of polish and cultivation to which she may 



( 142 ) 

be raised by education and good society; but the 
idea is also present to every cultivated imagination 
of a nature purified from vulgarity and grossness, 
and elevated by all that is dignified, graceful and 
attractive, which is the just object of admiration 
and esteem. This is equally the case with respect 
to character, to art, to language, and to sentiment, 
and every approach to it is an approach to true 
taste, the first principles of which resolve them- 
selves into refined nature and moral fitness. Now 
making all due allowance for the errors of heathen- 
ism, it was with this elevation of purpose and of 
aim that the most illustrious of the writers and 
artists of Greece thought and composed. It glows 
in their finest poetry, it animates their noblest 
oratory, it is imprinted on their most admired 
statues, it is the union of taste and learning with 
genius and invention, it is the to xaAov of the 
antient philosophy, the beau ideal of the finest 
writers on modern poetry and art. 

Experience has fully proved the necessity of 
deferring to some such standards of authority as 



( 143 ) 

the classical writers, in order to oppose an effectual 
check to that tendency towards literary barbarism, 
into which the public taste will be occasionally 
betrayed by the fatal splendor of brilliant but 
perverted genius. 

There was a time when the glittering conceits 
of Cowley were more admired than the beautiful 
or sublime of Milton, and the antithesis of Hall 
or Donne than the graceful energy of Dryden. 
France has had its hotel of Rambouillet, as 
England its sera of German sentimentality and 
French metaphysics. 

Each of these examples of perverted taste pro- 
duced in its day, on a considerable portion of the 
reading public, a temporary hallucination, and each 
had its train of imitators and admirers — but as the 
influence which they exercised was at variance 
with sound reason, and genuine passion, the spell 
by which the truth of nature was counteracted 
could not long subsist ; the public recovered from 
the delusion, and if the works of any such writers 
are still buoyant on the stream of time, it is by the 



( 144 ) 

force of distinguished excellence, separate from 
and in spite of the particular defects which have 
here been censured. 

It forms not the least of the many advantages of 
true taste, that when its principles are once ac- 
o i,; vpd, they communicate a corresponding charm 
to the exertions of the mind, wheresoever directed, 
and, like those tests in chemistry which discover 
the hidden qualities of bodies, detect as it were 
instinctively, the true and the false in the various 
compositions of genius. 

Finally, it is not to be forgotten that our religion, 
and much of its history and its evidences, are en- 
shrined in the learned languages, and that when 
the fundamental truths of Christianity were to be 
asserted and illustrated, the strenuous efforts of 
the great reformers were instantly directed to the 
cultivation of Grecian literature. 



( 144 ) 



ADDENDA. 

In the list of authorities cited p. 73, relative to the mode of 
appointing choruses, the Oration of Demosthenes against Mei- 
dias ought to have been included. Besides confirming the 
general statements on this subject in the preceding pages, it 
contains a passage by which it appears that, in addition to the 
reward of a tripos conferred on the victorious chorus, it o- 
regus was crowned and ofFerp-i sacrifice : — SrjXop on rag fxev 
rifxepaq EKEivag «e cvvsp^ofieda stti top aywva Kara rag 
liavTetag Tavrag, -Kepi avrwv <?£0avajU£0a, o/iolcog 6, re 
/jLsXkoJV vikclv, rat 6 wavTiov v^arog yevi]ff£adac rr)v de 
T(ov £Tnvudh)v virep avrs tot ij^rj <re0avSrcu 6 vik&v. — 
Demosthenes Taylori, v. iii. p. 107. 

The orator also (p. 94 & 109) refers to the possibility of 
bribing the judges, (vid. Dissertation, p. 69 & 87,) and to the 
ruinous prodigality of expense with which some of the choregi 
discharged their functions. 

Page 76. In transfusing into the text the substance of the 
remarkable passage quoted from Athenseus, p. 76, the Author 
finds he has omitted an interesting fact stated in it by that 
author — viz. that the Athenians wrapped their faces in their 
mantles on the occasion referred to, in order to conceal their 
sensations of grief from the foreigners who were present. 

Page 128, line 14. An accomplished scholar has remarked 
to the author, that the apparent contradiction (noticed p. 124, 
line 14) was probably in harmony with the Athenian belief of 
the real character of the Ewmenides. 



i 



AGAMEMNON. 



SUBJECT OF THE DRAMA, 



TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK SCHOLIAST. 



Agamemnon, on his departure for Troy, promised 
Clytemnestra, that, if he took the city, he would 
signify the event to her by a fire-signal. Clytem- 
nestra, therefore, stationed a sentinel, hired for the 
purpose, who should be on the watch for the sig- 
nal. On beholding it, he proclaims the intelli- 
gence. She sends for a number of the elders of 
the city, who compose the chorus, and informs 
them of the appearance of the signal. They im- 
mediately sing a triumphal hymn. Not long after 
Talthybius (the herald) arrives, and relates what 
had befallen the Greeks during the voyage. Soon 
after Agamemnon appears in a chariot: another 
chariot follows him, bearing the spoils and (the 
captive) Cassandra. He enters his mansion with 
l2 



( 148 ) 

Clytemnestra. Cassandra, before she enters the 
palace, breaks forth into prophetic strains, predic- 
tive of her own death, of that of Agamemnon, and 
of the murder of his mother by Orestes. She then 
rushes forward, like one about to die, casting away 
her prophetic fillets. This portion of the drama 
is greatly admired, as highly calculated to awaken 
terror and pity. i^Eschylus is peculiar in this 
respect — that he has represented Agamemnon as 
slain on the scene. # He does not particularise the 
murder of Cassandra, but alludes to her as dead. 
He introduces ^Egysthus and Clytemnestra sum- 
marily defending themselves concerning the mur- 
der ; the one, on account of the sacrifice of Iphi- 
genia, the other, on account of the miseries brought 
upon his father, Thyestes, by Atreus. 



* Stanley conjectures the original reading was, 
under or behind the scene. 



PERSONS OF THE DRAMA. 



Watchman. 

Agamemnon. 

Clytemnestra, his Wife. 

Cassandra, Daughter of Priam. 

Herald. 

iEGYSTHUS, first Cousin of Agamemnon, and Paramour 
of Clytemnestra. 

Chorus of Old Men. 



SCENE I. 

The piece opens with the soliloquy of a watchman, who 
laments his hard fate in being forced to look out year after 
year for the appearance of the signal-fire. 

Watchman speaks. 

Grant me, ye gods, deliverance from these toils, 

This annual watch, which, like a dog, I keep, 

Placed on the summit of the royal house 

Of the Atridae — whence my eyes survey 

The choir of nightly stars, and those bright orbs, 

Regents* in heaven, whose daily changes bring 

* The expression " regents in heaven" — Xa/jnrpovg 
hvvaoTCLQ — literally shining rulers, as applied to the sun 
and moon, is in the bold style of Oriental imagery, and 
has been imitated by some of our greatest poets. Thus 
Milton — 

" First in his East the glorious lamp was seen, 
Regent of day." 

The Pythagorean principles of iEschylus, no less than 



( 152 ) 

Winter and summer in their course to man. 
The torch symbolical, the herald flame, 
Long-promised signal of the fall of Troy, 
I now look out for — so a woman wills 
Of manly counsels,* anxious for th' event. 



that taste for the sublime which his poetry displays, 
led to the contemplation of the celestial luminaries. 
In the Seven Chiefs he expressively calls the moon 
vvKTog ofdaXfxog, the eye of the night. In the same 
spirit Shakspeare, in Richard II., calls the sun, " the 
searching eye of heaven," and Milton, in the Morning 
Hymn, " the world's eye and soul." It is interesting 
to trace these parallelisms of language and feeling 
between the great poets of ancient and modern times. 

* Of manly counsels. The corresponding words in 
the original, avdpoflovkov xeap, have been variously in- 
terpreted, but Bishop Blomfield has so clearly esta- 
blished the sense given in the translation by parallel 
expressions from other Greek authors, that no farther 
defence of it is necessary than a reference to his note. 
Schutz adduces a line from the Agamemnon, in which 
the same idea respecting Clytemnestra is conveyed in 
other words : — 

Tvpui kut (ivdpa auHppov ev(f>p6vit)c Xeyetg. — 1. 342. 



( 153 ) 

When on my toilsome dew-bespangled couch 
I lie, unvisited by dreams, pale fear 
Chases sleep's airy form, who fain would steep 
These weary eye-lids in forgetfulness. 
And if to sing or hum some soothing tune 
My lips essay, to charm the live-long hours, 
Sighs then oppress me ; and, with tearful eyes, 
The altered fortunes of this house I mourn — 
Not now, as heretofore, by wisdom governed. 
Oh ! that the signal of my finished cares, 
The joy-diffusing light would cleave the gloom. 

[The promised signal suddenly appears. 

Torch of the night, thrice hail ! thy rays emit 
A splendor like the morn ; at thy behest 
The Argive youth, oblivious of past woe, 
Shall thrid with airy feet the mazy dance. 
From my own lips great Agamemnon's wife 
Shall hear the tidings, that, with eager haste 
Her couch deserting, she may bid these walls 
Ring with triumphal songs in glad acclaim 
Of the bright beacon : if, as it proclaims, 



( 154 ) 

Ilion be prostrate, I myself will dance 

As in the prelude to some festival. 

Fortune at length upon our rulers smiles ;* 

The die is cast of glorious victory. 

Oh ! may I greet the master of this mansion 

On his return, and clasp his hand in mine. 

The rest unuttered be— my tongue is chained ;f 



* " Fortune at length upon our rulers smiles ; 
" The die is cast of glorious victory." 
The words in the original may be thus translated : — 
I shall prosperously conclude the business of my em- 
ployers, this blazing forth of the torch being to me 
like a lucky throw of three times six — a metaphor 
taken from a game in which three dice were used, and 
the lucky throw was when they all turned up with six 
upon the face. Such allusions, it is obvious, admit not 
of literal translation. 

-j~ The expression " my tongue is chained," if ren- 
dered literally would be, a great ox has mounted on my 
tongue — (3ovq eirl yXwafft] jiiyag (3i(3nK£v. Commenta- 
tors have differed much on the origin of so strange a 
proverb or metaphor. Some have derived it from a 
species of money current in Attica, bearing the im- 
pression of a bull or ox, and suppose the watchman 



( 155 ) 

Could these walls speak, they'd tell a fearful tale ; # 
My thoughts 'mid those who know the fatal truth 
Seek not concealment, elsewhere I am mute. 

CHORUS I. I. 

The tenth year rolls awayf 
Since Priam's vengeful foes, th' heroic pair 
From Atreus sprung, (who the dread symbols wear, 

Jove's gift, of sovereign sway,) 
Great Menelas, and Agamemnon, bore 

To Ilion, from Achaia's shore 
The hurricane of war ; their martial train, 
Freighting a thousand ships, rode proudly o'er the 
main. 

to hint, that, if he spoke out, he should be fined ; 
others that he was bribed to be silent. — Menander, as 
quoted by Athenaeus, uses the same proverb. — Vide 
Schutz. 

* He alludes to the adulterous crime of iEgysthus 
and Clytemnestra, of which he was not ignorant. 

■f The chorus, composed of old men of Argos, and 
who as yet are not made acquainted with the intelli- 
gence of the fall of Troy, indulge throughout this 
introductory chorus in desultory allusions to the events 
of the war, and lament the listlessness of their own 
existence. 



( 156 ) 

I. II. 

Like vultures, that on high, 
With clamorous grief the rifled nest above, 
Where long they watched their young with ten- 
derest love, 

In eddying circles fly.* 
But sylvan Pan, or Phoebus god of day, 

Or Jove, supreme in sovereign sway, 
Touched by their plaintive wail and piercing cry, 
To scourge the guilty bids the fury fly. 

i. in. 

Thus th' Atridae's might 
Jove, guardian of each hospitable rite, 

Against the perjured Paris sent, 
To Greece and Troy awarding furious strife — 

For the oft-wedded faithless wife, 
With shivering of spears, and knees in contest bent. 

* In eddying circles fiy — literally rendered, the Greek 
is, " rowing round with the oars of their wings." 



( 157 ) 

II. I. 

Relentless Fate combines 
Her schemes, which nought can alter — tears are 

vain. 
Nor cries, nor offerings, pardon can obtain 

For the neglected shrines. 
But we, who now her dread decrees proclaim, 
When blazed war's carnage-waking flame, 
At home were doomed the tedious hours to wear, 
Or infant-like on staves our tottering forms to bear. 

ii. ii. 
For weak as infancy 
Old age creeps forth, to vent its listless moan — 
Withered its leaves, its martial ardour flown, 

A dream, a vacancy ! 
But tell us, royal Clytemnestra, born 
Of Tyndarus, what fame this morn 
Thine ear has reached? why blaze these fires on 

high, 
Surmounting the proud fanes and reddening all the 
sky? 



( 158 ) 

II. III. 

Rich clouds of incense shed 
Soft perfume, from the royal storehouse fed : 
Oh ! deign to speak, and chase away 
The alternations quick of hope and fear, 
Which now my anxious bosom cheer — 
Now bid cold doubt arise, and quench hope's kind- 
ling ray. 

STROPHE. 

I hail her call ;* th' inspiring muse 
My fancy wakes, and fires my views — 

* " I hail her call." The beauties and the obscurities 
of this choral ode are both conspicuous. Potter quotes 
Brumoy's despairing reference to its difficulties of con- 
struction and allusion — " Ton peut bien defier toute 
plume Francoise de rendre ce morceau, tant il est de- 
figure et entortille." Abler scholars than Brumoy 
have been reduced to make similar complaints with 
respect to some of its passages. Butler, for instance, 
after citing the different order of the words, and the 
readings proposed by Heath and Schutz for the in- 
troductory strophe, finishes by designating it " locus 
vexatissimus" The prophetic style in which a great 




ptu>r IS6. 1/2 



( 159 ) 

Rekindles youth in every vein, 
And rouses memory's pictured train. 

Bright were the omens, when the flow'r 
Of Greece the sceptred brothers led, 

On vengeance bent, elate with pow'r, 
Ilion, thy fated shores to tread : 
Jove's royal bird was on the wing 
To urge their martial mustering. 
Two eagles, with impetuous flight 
Descending from the fields of light, 
Shot towards the right* their airy way, 
In front of that bright host's array. 



portion of it is composed necessarily involves abrupt 
transitions and enigmatical allusions, two great sources 
of obscurity ; — besides which the text itself is in some 
passages incurably corrupted. 

* Shot towards the right — literally, in the direction 
of the hand which brandishes the spear — x £ P°£ * K 
dopnraXrov — i. e. the right hand : Milton, so rich in 
classical allusions, uses a synonymous figure. 

" As flame they part, 
Half wheeling to the shield, half to the spear.*' 



( 160 ) 

Sable the one, the other bore 
Plumage of snowy white behind ; 

The royal tent they hovered o'er ; 
Their talons bloody spoils entwined — 
A hare's* young offspring, fiercely torn 
From the maternal womb ere born. — 
Pour forth deep notes of plaintive woe — 
But still, let smiling hope with views of conquest 
glow. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

The prophet of the host, whose eye 
Could pierce through deep futurity, 
Beheld, depictured in this sign, 
The fortunes of the chiefs divine ; 

* A hare's young offspring, &c. The passage in the 
original has much employed the diligence of critics and 
commentators, owing to its somewhat confused refer- 
ence, in the same breath, to the foetus of the hare, and 
the hare itself. The eagles had seized a pregnant hare, 
and lacerated not only it, but the foetus in its womb. 
The construction of the words, as proposed by Bishop 
Blomfield, includes this double sense, and, without ad- 
mitting it, the Greek text is all confusion. 



( 161 ) 

Then quick to the Atridae turning, 
'Mid the bright host assembled round, 

Eyes with prescient fury burning, 
He thus the mystic spell unbound : 
Time urges on the destined hour ; — 
The gathering clouds of battle lour : 
Lo ! Priam's city bends to fall ; 
The martial troops that guard her wall, 
And all her treasured stores, await 
Th' unpitying stroke of ruthless Fate. 

But oh ! beware, lest, when that town 
Reluctant wears the captive chain, 

Some god assume a withering frown, 
And conquest's crested honours stain. 
Diana's wrath this house must feel — 
Eagles,* she hates your bloody meal. — 



* Eagles, she hates, &c. The Greek literally says, 
that she (Diana) is incensed against the winged dogs — 
i. e. the eagles of her father. The term winged dogs, 
or griffins, for eagles, is one of those extravagances of 

M 



( 162 ) 

Pour forth deep notes of plaintive woe — 
But still, let smiling hope with views of conquest 
glow. 

EPODE. 

The radiant goddess of the chace 
O'er the fierce lion's infant race — 
O'er all the whelps of savage brood, 
That prowl within the umbrageous wood, 
Or roam the trackless desart's way, 
Extends her tutelary sway. 
These signs, which joy and terror blend, 
She urges to their destined end. 
Her menaced vengeance to allay, 
We hail the bright-eyed god of day, 
Lest to unloose the fleet wind-bound, 
Forbidden blood should taint this ground. 
Ye terrors, cease your restless sway — 
Away, dread sacrifice, away — 



expression in which the wild fancy of iEschylus often 
indulged, and for which he is pleasantly rallied by 
Aristophanes in the " Frogs." 



( 163 ) 

A daughter's blood for vengeance cries,* 
Glares frenzy in a mother's eyes : 
'Twas thus that Calchas could disclose 
Bright triumphs mixed with direful woes, 
For both his prescient eye surveyed, 
In the portentous birds displayed. 
Pour forth deep notes of plaintive woe, 
But still, let smiling hope with views of conquest 
glow. 

i. 
Great Jove, mysterious power! 

How shall we hail thee, throned supreme? 
Howf speak thy name, deep cares devour 

My mind, while brooding o'er this theme, 

* A daughter s blood, fyc. The whole passage in the 
original is very obscure, from its prophetical and myste- 
rious allusions to the approaching sacrifice of Iphige- 
neia, the virgin daughter of Agamemnon, at the shrine 
of Diana, the dreadful price of unbinding the winds 
which detained the Grecian fleet at Aulis, after setting 
sail for Troy. 

f How speak thy name. Many passages might be 
cited from the Greek poets, illustrative of the super- 

M 2 



( 166 ) 

Oft when the harassed body sleeps, 
Forth memory clothed in vision creeps, 

And bids the humbled mind revere, 
The rigid means by Heaven assigned, 

To check presumption's mad career, 
And by the balm of woe to purify the mind. 
Such discipline th' immortal gods decree, 
High seated on their thrones in glorious majesty. 

STROPHE. 

Where gently flows the refluent tide, 

Aulis, around thy winding bay, 
Whence Chalcis smiles in sunny pride; 

By adverse winds imprisoned, lay 
The fleet, o'er which the sceptered hand 
Of great Atrides waved command. 
Vainly to break the spell he sought, 



Day glided after day, yet no deliverance wrought. 



ANTISTROPHE. 

The chief, though much by grief impelled, 
Stifled the workings of his soul, 

All fruitless bursts of passion quelled, 
By sovereign reason's wise controul. 



( 167 ) 

Nor blamed the prophet; though the flower 
Of Greece sunk under famine's power, 
And furious gales from Strymon tore 
The cables of the ships, and strewed with wrecks 
the shore. 

STROPHE. 

But when the heaven-instructed seer 

Announced Diana's stern decree, 
The remedy proved more severe, 

More baleful than the storm-bound sea. 
While of her ruthless ire he spoke, 
Tears fell, and sighs commingling broke 
From th' Atridas, each the ground 
Touched with his sceptre, and the elder utterance 
found. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Most cruel fate! shall then this hand 
To barbarous rites my child consign, 

Pride of my house, and shall I stand 
To view her life-blood stain this shrine? 

Yet glory calls — 'tis mine to wield, 

The sword, and rule the tented field, 



( 168 ) 

My friends will not their murmurs quell, 

Until a virgin's blood break the wind-holding spell. 

STROPHE. 

But when necessity's strong plea* 

Had nature's yearning pangs represt, 
Infuriate rage, impiety, 

Boiled in the monarch's phrenzied breast: 
The lovely fair was doomed to bleed, 
Her sire the dreadful rites decreed, 
To speed the moment which should land, 
The slaughter-breathing host on Ilion's fated strand. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

In vain her supplicating shriek 

Assails a father's ears — in vain 
Her virgin form, her youth bespeak 

Compassion from the warrior train : 
He bids fierce ruffians 'neath the shrine 
Place as a hind's that form divine ; 

* But when necessity's strong j)lea> fyc. Vide the re- 
marks on Necessity, p. 05 of the Essay. 



( 169 ) 

The prayer ascends, the victim lies 

Wrapped in her flowing robe,* a destined sacrifice. 

STROPHE. 

She spoke not; words denouncing woe 
To all the host had utterance found, 

But the same hands which laid her low, 

Her beauteous lips with thongs had bound : 

Then from her arms, and heaving breast, 

Loosing her saffron-coloured vest, 



* Wrapped in her flowing robe, fyc. In this passage, 
Iphigeneia is described as so infolding herself in her 
robes that her position in death might consist with 
strict propriety. Euripides, as cited by Pawe, de- 
scribes the same of Polyxena. — Hec. 567. 

Qvi](TKiiQ 6 fib) Q 

TroWrjp irpovoiav e't^ev EvayjqjiuiQ wecreiv' 

Passages of a similar tendency are quoted by the 
same commentator from several of the Latin poets. 



( 170 ) 

On each stern chief her gentle eye 

Shot forth expressive beams of suppliant energy.* 



* Shot forth expressive beams. The Greek is remark- 
ably touching. 

£/3aX\' EKCLffTOV dvTTjpiOV 

air bfifxarog (jiXei (j>i\oiKTa> 

i. e. she pierced, with a pity-inspiring dart from her 
eye, each of the sacrificers. The poet, in this descrip- 
tion of the mien and feelings of Iphigeneia is true to 
nature. He paints her as an unwilling and suffering, 
but a meek and patient victim. Euripides, on the 
contrary, in describing the same scene, transforms her 
into a lofty heroine, just suited to grace French tragedy, 
who joyfully welcomes a bloody death for the sake of 
her country and the army. Alfieri, always more of 
the rhetorician than the poet, has fallen into the same 
train of sentiment, for he makes Electra, when Clytem- 
nestra is venting her grief for the loss of Iphigeneia, 
thus address her : — 

oggi se il cielo 
Chiedesse pur d'una tua figlia il sangue, 
Oggi piena di gioja, all' ara io corro. 

What a different Electra from that of Sophocles! 



( 171 ) 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Nought but some matchless artist's power* 
Could paint, in act to speak, her face, 

That face, which, in the festive hour, 
Had oft, with captivating grace,f 

Lucretius has painted the scene more in the spirit of 
iEschylus. 

Muta metu, terram, genibus submissa, petebat : 
Nee miserae prodesse in tali tempore quibat, 
Quod patrio princeps donarat nomine regem : 
Nam, sublata virum manibus, tremebundaque, ad aras 
Deducta est. — lib. i. 92. 

* Nought but some matchless artist's power, fyc. It is 
probable that in this allusion to the art of painting, the 
poet might have had in view some picture or group of 
this subject by a contemporary artist. That it was a 
favorite subject with the ancient artists is well known 
by existing gems and vases. The celebrated picture 
by Timanthes, in which Agamemnon was introduced 
among the chiefs of his army, with his head veiled, as 
if labouring under inexpressible grief, was of the age 
of Alexander. 

f Had oft with captivating grace. The Greek text, 
corresponding with this passage, and commencing with 



( 172 ) 

And songs in high triumphal strain, 
Hailed her loved father's happy reign. 
These eyes the sequel did not see; 
The prophet's words were truth — the rest unuttered 
be. 

EPODE. 

If justice, armed with terrors, rise, 

She frowns to make the sufferers wise ; 

Since none can fly relentless fate, 

Why seek her depths to penetrate? 

Th' impending stroke of wrath to know, 

Were to anticipate our woe. 

Oh may th' eventful hours which lie 

Embosomed in futurity, 

Upon the Apian land with blessings rise,* 

True to the vows of those who sway her destinies. 

the words £7ret 7roXXaa£ 7rarpog, v. 234, is obscure and 
difficult, and was left unintelligible by Stanley and 
Heath. Schutz was the first critic who, by pointing 
ayv£ with the particle of the dative, and connecting it 
with avly, brought out a probable meaning without 
doing violence to the existing reading. 
* Apian, i. e. Pelopponesian. 




1 ' 






( n3 ; 



SCENE II. 

Clytemnestra, Chorus. 

Chorus, Thy presence, Clytemnestra, I approach 
With the respectful homage that should greet 
My absent monarch's consort ; do these rites 
Announce true tidings, or thy high-wrought hopes ? 
Fain I would know, but fear to importune. 
CI. May the morn, springing from the womb of 

night, 
Rise fraught with smiling fortune on this land: 
Listen to tidings bright beyond our hopes, 
The conquering Greeks in Priam's city reign. 
Ch. What words are these. — I scarce can credence 

yield. 
CI. That Troy is ours, can words more plainly 

speak ? 
Ch. These tears attest the fervour of my joy. 



( 174 ) 

CL Thine eyes are faithful to thy loyal feelings. 
Ch. But whence proceeds this confidence of hope? 
CL From plainest proofs, unless the gods deceive. 
Ch. Dost thou give credence to persuasive dreams ? 
CL The slumbering's mind's delusions rule not me. 
Ch. Haply thy faith some flying rumour sways. 
CL Why treat me as a young enthusiast? 
Ch. When did destruction lay the city low? 
CL The very night that ushered in this morn. 
Ch. But what winged messenger the fact proclaimed? 
CL Vulcan from Ida's top, in circling flame ; 
Torch answered torch, till here the signal flew :* 
First Ida to th' Hermaean crag which crowns 



* The practice of conveying intelligence by fire- 
signals existed in Greece before the age of Homer, 
vide Iliad, book xviii. There is a remarkable passage 
in Herodotus, (Calliope 3,) which states that when 
Mardonius was approaching Athens, he formed the 
project of informing the Persian king of its capture, by 
means of torches or fires, (jrvpaotQ,) dispersed at cer- 
tain distances along the intervening islands. 

So when the Piraeus was to be attacked during the 
Pelopponesian war, Thucy elides describes the approach 



( 175 ) 

The sea-girt Lemnos ; next the herald blaze 
Reached Athos, sacred seat of sovereign Jove. 
Triumphant thence, borne on the foaming waves, 
Whose wreathing tops it tipped with lambent 

beams, 
Th' advancing light, effulgent as a sun, 

of the enemy as announced to Athens by the waving of 
lights ((ppvtiToi,) from Salamis, lib. ii. 94 ; and during 
the siege of Platsea, the besieged counteracted the sig- 
nals of the besiegers, by waving torches in an opposite 
direction. See also Virgil, iEneid. ii. 256, and Poly- 
bius, x. 43. 

A geographical question has been raised as to the 
possibility of transmitting a signal by fire from Mount 
Ida to Argos, by means of the successive stations enu- 
merated. Vossius, as quoted by Pawe, maintains the 
affirmative, so does Casaubon, as cited by Butler, and 
he answers the question by the following computation, 
Mount Ida to Lemnos 70,000 paces, thence to Mount 
Athos 50,000. The exact spot meant by Macistus is 
doubtful, probably it was part of Mount Pelion, or Ossa, 
or else of Telethrius, in Eubcea ; let it be assumed at 
30,000, thence to Cithseron, about the same distance. 
From Cithseron to Egiplanctus in Megaris 20,000, 
thence to Arachne 30,000, and finally to Mycsense some- 
what less than 30,000. 



( 176 ) 

Poured on Maeistus golden radiance. 
Reckless of sleep, impatient of delay, 
The fiery wonder moved — Euripus flamed 
With bright illumined waves, Messapus thence 
Caught the glad signal, and the stationed guard, 
Firing a heathy pile, the fervid blaze* 
Transmitted onwards with augmented power. 
The splendid conflagration wide diffused 
The glad intelligence, and bounding o'er 
Th' Asopian plain, bright as the full-orbed moon 
When at her noon of glory, lighted up 
Citheron's lofty head, enkindling there 
Responsive zeal, and corresponding fires ; 
By generous rivalry the guard inspired, 
Bid the fierce blaze, with ever-gathering strength, 
Hold on its course, Gorgope's marshy plain 
Was all illumined: iEgiplanctus next 
Wore on his giant head the crown of flame. 
Up the proud steep, whence to the eye expands 
The gulf Saronic, next, the kindling power, 
Shaking its fiery tresses, soared sublime. # 

* The Greek, literally rendered is " they sent on 
the vast fiery beard of flame." 



( 177 ) 

Th' adjoining post, Arachne's craggy height, 
It scaled, it reddened o'er; the light derived 
From Ida's top thus finally diffused 
Its beamy splendour o'er the royal house 
Of the Atridae : thus it reached our shores. 
Torch kindled torch successive, but my heart 
Of these the first and last most warmly hails. # 
Ch. Lady, my vows are eager to ascend, 
In gratitude to heaven, but let thy lips 
Repeat once more the glad intelligence. 
CI. The Greeks triumphant reign this day in Troy : 
What sounds conflicting in her streets are heard ! 
Should'st thou on vinegar soft ungents pour 
Th' opposing streams would separate, not blend. 
Not less opposed the cries distinct which mark 
The victors and the vanquish'd ; pale in grief, 
Stretched on the cold remains of slaughtered friends, 



* Of these the jirst and last, fyc. That is to say, I 
particularly hail the first torch as the original transmit- 
ter of this joyful news, and the last as its final trans- 
mitter to this city. 



( 178 ) 

Wives, sisters weep, and children o'er their sires 
Extend in mute despair their captive arms. 
The victors, breathing from the toil severe 
Of nightly conflict, range the streets for food, 
Or in the captured palaces of Troy, 
As chance directs their steps, woo soft repose. 
May no insatiate lust of things forbidden 
O'ercloud their flattering prospects ; half their course 
Is unaccomplished yet — their safe return. 
Should they escape long wanderings o'er the deep, 
Who knows but tardy justice yet may claim 
Atonement for the blood profusely shed ? 
Forgive these bodings of a female mind : 
May fortune smile and crown my every joy. 

CHORUS. 

Hail, sovereign Jove ! hail, friendly night 
With robe of starry lustre bright I* 



* With robe of starry lustre bright. The original 
words are — fjLeyaXwv Kofffuov Kreareipa. This passage 
is very obscure. The turn given to it in the translation 



( I? 9 ) 

Aided by thee, the net of fate* 
Was cast o'er Troy's devoted state ; 
Her towery strength, her martial throng, 
Youth, age, the helpless, and the strong, 
All sunk enthralled ; red slaughter woke, 
And vengeance framed the captive yoke. 
Thee, Jove, whose ire the wretch o'ertakes 
Who hospitable pledges breaks, 



was first suggested by Stanley. The word tcoff/JioQ is 
frequently applied to express the glories of the starry 
heavens, and Bentley, in his Phalaris, has shown that 
Pythagoras was the first who thus employed it : as 
iEschylus was a Pythagorean, he probably used it in 
the same sense. Schutz supposes that the words are 
not an apostrophe to night in general, but to the parti- 
cular night in which Troy was taken ; but there is no- 
thing in the context which limits thus their application. 
* The net of fate. This figure is in the bold style 
of oriental imagery, and accords with the similies used 
on similar occasions by the Hebrew prophets. Thus 
Ezek. xii. 13, in predicting the approaching captivity 
of Zedekiah, " My net also will I spread upon him, 
and he shall be taken in my snare, and I will bring 
him to Babylon. 

N 2 



( 180 ) 

I hail ; by thee directed flew 

Th' unerring shaft # which Paris slew. 



Their fate was sealed by Jove's decree, 
The lightning of his vengeance scathed their race, 

The doom before ordained, fulfilled we see, 
And link by link the chain of causes trace ; 

Perish their lore who dare deny 
That o'er this world just gods preside, 

Avengers of the violated tie, 
And spurners of oppressive pride. 



* The unerring shaft, &c. Nothing can be more 
obscure than the Greek original in this passage. 
Dr. Blomfield, after much learned investigation, 
abandons it to scholars to deal with as they can. The 
sentence is probably proverbial. A general meaning 
glimmers through it corresponding with the translation. 
It says, literally rendered, that the dart of Jupiter was 
not shot before the time, or above the stars. The 
French translator thus elegantly expresses it : — " Mais 
le trait n'est point parti avant le temps, et ne s'est point 
egare dans les airs." 



( 181 ) 

Of this fell race are they, ignobly great, 
Who murder breathe, and tower in guilty state ; 
Mine be the happy lot secure to glide 
In calm content and peace down life's tumultuous 
tide. 

No refuge 'gainst the stroke of fate 
Can riches yield to them whose feet profane, 

Winged with presumption, dare to violate 
The shrine of justice, and pollute her fane ; 

Their course blind frenzy sways, 
Shines on their path delusive light, 

Like brass, which, proved, a dark alloy betrays, 
Fades the meteor glare in night ; 
Thoughtless as boys who urge the feather'd race, 
They work their country's and their own disgrace ; 
In vain to heaven they look when stung with fear, 
The angry gods refuse their vows to hear. 

Thus Paris when an honoured guest 
At the Atridae's hospitable board, 

Faithless and perjured more, the more carest, 
Beguiled the beauteous Helen from her lord. 



( 182 ) 

Ah, faithless wife ! Greece in that hour 
Manned fleets for thee, and shone in arms ; 

And by thy presence Troy in place of dower 
Saw ruin brought, and war's alarms. 
Then with forebodings deep, each prophet's tongue 
In sad and melancholy numbers sung — 
How, whilst long years should urge their destined 

sway, 
The harassed state must mourn, to countless ills a 
prey ; 

Oh ! royal house,* oh ! nuptial bed 
To her who flies her lord's embrace, once dear : 

She's sought in vain, a spectre's form instead 
The palace haunts, and reigns in silence drear ;f 



* Oh ! royal house, &c. It has been a question who 
the prophets here referred to were — whether Trojan or 
Grecian. With Dr. Blomfield, Schutz, and Heath, we 
incline to the latter opinion ; for it has been justly 
asked, how was the chorus at Mycenae to know what 
the Trojan prophets had said or sung on occasion of 
Helen's flight, 
•f She's sought in vain,&c. One clause of this beautiful 




eppeL Tracr' A<j>po6ira 



r/rit 3 7 cfc/>«(?rip 



( 183 ) 

The polished statue's magic grace, 
Which imaged forth her loveliness, 

Is hateful to his eyes, and joy gives place # 
To wounded pride and deep distress. 
Enchanting scenes of airy bliss arise, 
Grief's forgeries, to cheat his sleeping eyes : 



strophe in the original is incurably corrupt, {irapeaTL 
aiyaa arifiog, &c.) and has defeated the conjectural 
emendations of the ablest critics. The allusion to the 
statues or busts of Helen which adorned the royal palace 
may be cited as a proof of the prevalence of such orna- 
ments in Grecian houses in the age of iEschylus. In the 
heroic age, if busts were elaborated at all, they must 
have been sad caricatures of the human face divine. 
The anguish with which Menelaus is described as view- 
ing these memorials of days of happiness is very true 
to nature, and resembles a passage in Dante — 

" nessun maggior dolore, 
Che ricordarsi del tempo felice 
Nella miseria." Inf. x. 121. 

* Joy gives place, &c. The Greek is eppet iraa 
'AtypoUra, where Aphrodite, Venus, is put for grace, or 
charms. 



( 184 ) 

He wakes — but seeks in vain those forms to clasp, 
Floating on sleep's light wings they shun his eager 
grasp. 

Such griefs the royal house, and woes 
Still heavier curse, meanwhile through all her land, 

Greece pours the tributary tear for those, 
Who sought elate with hope the Trojan strand : 

Where are they ? what returns to cheer 
The heart to hope deferred a prey ? 

Ashes, to crown the sad funereal bier — 
Arms, from dead warriors reft away ! 
These relics sad are all that Mars bestows 
Of heroes falling amid slaughter 'd foes — 
Mars, who throughout the contest's wild career 
The doubtful scales displays, their balance-beam* 
a spear. 



* The epithets here applied to Mars are very difficult 
either to understand or to translate. Heath interprets 
ra\avToi>xoQ, " who weighs the events of battle," " who 
holds the beam of victory." It has been referred by 




page 164. 1 5 



( 185 ) 

The stricken heart, the sorrowing friend, 
Of each loved warrior's fame delights to tell ; 

How one the soul of battle met his end, 
And for another's wife one glorious fell. 

Others, their solace in deep tones 
Of censure on th' Atridas found, 

Or plaintive, wept for beauteous youths whose 
bones 
Had found a tomb on Trojan ground ; 
Not less the general hatred sullies fame, 
Than if a solemn curse the state proclaim ; # 



others to the custom, prevailing in the Trojan war, of 
redeeming the bodies of the slain by money or pre- 
sents. 

* Not less the general hatred, &c. Upon the mean- 
ing of this dark passage the best commentators have 
differed. The translation follows the note of Dr. Blom- 
field, which is to the following effect : — The breath of 
popular indignation carries with it the force of a pub- 
lic imprecation entered into by the city. This sounds 
very enigmatical, and the construction of the words is 
as puzzling as the sense is obscure. Probably the text 
is corrupted. 



( 186 ) 

Visions of coming woe my heart affright, 
For slaughter's gory deeds the gods requite. 



Though fortune's smiles a transient blaze 
Upon the impious oft may seem to shed, 

Soon the pale furies quench those sparkling rays, 
And bid the fickle power her path retread ; 

Pushed headlong from their lofty seat, 
They pine beneath her adverse blast ; 

Against the proud, whom acclamations greet, 
Jove's angry bolts full oft are cast. 
Mine be a lot unenvied — far from me 
The victor's wreath, the prisoner's fetters be ; 
Nor mine by slaughter won the envied throne, 
Nor mine the dungeon's gloom where captives 
vainly groan. 

Fame through our streets with rapid flight 
Proclaims the joy-announcing light ; 
But who shall say if truth divine, 
Or falsehood glitters in this sign ? 



( 187 ) 

Childish that heart, that reason wild, 
By such vague messengers beguiled : 
One hour it swells with joy elate, 
The next accuses adverse fate ; 
Fiction to gloss with truth's bright hue, 
And hail unborn events as true, 
Is woman's part — but, vainly gay, 
Quick the bright pageant flits away. 



( 188 ) 

SCENE III. 

Clytemnestra enters. — Chorus. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Soon shall we know whether the bickering glare 

Of these bright torches and successive lights 

The truth proclaim, or, like some flattering dream, 

Cheat us with vain delusive images. 

From yonder strand behold a herald comes, 

With boughs of olive he is shaded o'er. 

The dust in clouds # around him marks his speed : 

No distant signal now, no beacon's flame, 

But mortal accents! shall our doubts relieve. 



* The dust in clouds, &c. Literally rendered it would 
be, " the thirsty dust, sister of the mud, and closely 
connected with it." 

*(• But mortal accents, &c. The commentators have 
differed much on the precise meaning of the words 
we ovt avav^og, &c. The true force of the words, we 
conceive, is attained, by regarding them as an allusion 



( 189 ) 

His words will either swell our tide of joy, 
Or — but away, all thoughts to hope opposed. 
Brighter and brighter still may fortune smile. 
Ch. Accursed be he who other wishes breathes. 



SCENE IV. 

Herald enters. 
Chorus, Herald, Clytemnestra. 

HERALD. 

Hail, Argos ! hail, my much loved native land 
In this tenth year of absence I behold, 
'Midst many frustrate hopes, one realised. 
I ventured not to cherish the fond thought 



to the herald flame, which, though a splendid and 
striking, was a dumb messenger, whereas the living 
herald, who was then in sight, Clytemnestra says, is no 
dumb messenger, nor one that will signify the truth by 
fiery signals, but by articulate sounds. 



( 190 ) 
That here in Argive soil my bones would rest.* 
Loved soil, thrice hail ! refulgent orb of day ! 
Jove, power supreme ! and thou, oh Pythian king, 
Pointing at us no more the arrowy death ! 
Skamander's banks beheld thee long our foe ; 
But o'er us now, Apollo, spread once more 
Thy bright protecting shield : ye gods that guide 



* The poet who is true to nature is the poet of all 
times and countries. This is one great source of the 
charm which attends the study of the great writers of 
antiquity. The voice of nature speaks in this speech 
of the herald, and his expressions of delight at finding 
himself again on the shores of his native land, and 
amidst objects inexpressibly dear to him by the tenderest 
ties of kindred and of country, represent the emotions 
of an unsophisticated and feeling mind, under similar 
circumstances, in every part of the world. Thus 
Homer, eminently the poet of nature, describes Aga- 
memnon as melting into tears on again treading the 
soil of his beloved Argos. — 

firoL 6 fjev yaipwv STrepi'iasTO TvarpiloQ airje 

KCll KVVEL CLTTTOIXEVOQ fjV TrClTpida' TToXXci 3'ct7r' CtVTOV 

Acucpva dep/.ia yiovT* stteI aairaaiiOQ 'ice ycuav. 

Odyss. iv. 521. 



( 191 ) 

The fate of battles — Hermes, power benign, 

The herald's friend, the herald's favourite theme — 

And you immortal heroes, who our hosts 

Urged to the combat, on the scant remains 

Escaped the thirsty spear, propitious smile. 

Ye royal mansions of our kings, loved walls — 

Ye seats revered — ye deities that face # 

The orient sun and drink his golden rays — 

If on our king ye e'er have favouring smiled, 

Oh! welcome his return so long delayed; — 

Bright as the sun chasing the mists of night, 

His country's joy, great Agamemnon comes : 

Hail his approach ; in him the chief behold, 

Jove's fated instrument, whose potent arm 

Has passed destruction's ploughshare over Troy.f 



* Ye deities that face, &c. The herald here ad- 
dresses himself to the deities or demons, i. e. the infe- 
rior race of gods, whose statues were placed in the 
open air, in shrines or on pedestals, towards the east. 
The expression in the original is, Zaifiovig r arTrjXtoi. 

f Has passed destructions ploughshare, &c. This 
image is quite in the style of the Hebrew prophets. 



( 192 ) 

Prostrate in dust her shrines, her temples lie ; 
Extinct her race ; and with the captive chain 
Ilion now compassed, great Atrides bends 
Homeward his steps, with glory blazoned round.* 
Above all mortals be his praise proclaimed ; 
Nor Paris, nor th' associates of his guilt, 
Can boast their crime its punishment exceeds. 
Not only on the ravisher death preys ; 
His family, his country share that fate, 
Accumulated woes on Troy are hurled. 
CI. Welcome, brave herald, from th' Achaian host. 
Her. Welcome those accents— death I reck not now. 
Ch. Have your fond feelings oft to home recurred? 
Her. These tears my deep emotions best pourtray. 
Ch. Then you were stricken by that soft disease. 
Her. I need some clue your meaning to attain. 
Ch. Your kindly thoughts responded to our own. 
Her. You say the army's longings imaged yours. 



* The poet with great art exalts the glory of Aga- 
memnon, to render the contrast of his approaching fate 
doubly tragic. 



( 193 ) 

Ch. Yes, many a sigh of speechless grief I've heaved. 
Her. What cause excited in you such dejection ? 
Ch. Silence, best solace of our woes has proved. 
Her. In the king's absence were your fears alarmed ? 
Ch. So much, that death, to use thy words, were joy. 
Her. The end is well achieved, but our long years 
Of absence, chequered all throughout have been 
With mingled joy and grief: who but the gods 
The privilege of bliss unchanging know ? 
The perils of our passage shall I paint, 
The reefs we crost ? how rarely we attained 
A friendly port, ev'n then, how hardly fared ? 
Successive trials marked each lingering hour ; 
Landed, to heavier evils we were doomed : 
Our couch, the earth's cold lap, 'neath hostile walls ; 
The adverse skies, the neighbouring marshes breathed 
Pernicious dews, whose fleecy moisture robbed 
Our garments of their soundness ; winter's blast, 
Whirling the snowy scourge from Ida's top, 
The very birds destroyed, and froze our limbs. 
Fierce was the summer's glare, what time the sea 
Its heaving billows hush'd in soft repose, 
o 



( 194 ) 

Slept neath the blaze of noon ; but why deplore 

These ills ? — the pain is past : past to the dead — 

They court not life again : nought it avails 

The living them to mourn, or fortune's turns — 

Henceforth I bid to grief a long adieu. 

To us, survivors of the Argive host, 

The final issue much these ills outweighs. 

Our's is the boast, a boast to be proclaim'd 

In the bright face of day, to all who speed 

O'er land or sea, that th' Achaian host, 

Victorious over Troy, with her proud spoils 

Have heaped the altars of the gods of Greece. 

Hail to our city ! let us all exclaim — 

Hail to our valorous chiefs ! Jove's favouring arm 

This issue has ensured : I now have done. 

Ch. That to my mind your words conviction bring 

I'll not deny : old age it well becomes 

Instruction to pursue with youthful zeal : 

The royal house and Clytemnestra most 

This news affects, but I shall share their bliss. 

CI. I^shrieked with joy when the nocturnal blaze 

Effulgently proclaimed the fall of Troy. 



( 195 ) 

The scoffer then with taunts exclaimed — " By signs 

Like these delusive thou art then convinced 

Ilion is ours ? credulity belongs 

To all thy sex:" though thus condemned, forthwith 

A sacrifice I ordered : at my word 

The altars blazed, soft clouds of incense rose, 

And cries of triumph through the city rung. 

What canst thou further add ? the king's own lips 

Ere long shall tell me more ; I'll now prepare 

What best may grace my honoured lord's return. 

To a wife's eyes what sight so ravishing 

As a loved consort to her arms restored 

Safe from war's doubtful strife, and to unfold 

His palace gates herself; go, speed his steps ; 

His people burn to manifest their love. 

His wife he'll find the guardian of his house,* 

Faithful as when he left her to her vows — 

To him devoted, to his foes a foe ; 

* The Greek literally rendered would be — " His 
wife he'll find the watch-dog of his house" — a com- 
parison expressive, though harsh, yet not ill suited to 
the venerable simplicity of the heroic age. 

o2 



( 196 ) 

No slur upon her honour — rust to brass 
Will sooner cleave than I be faithless found. 

[Exit Clytemnestra. 
Her. Such lofty language if by truth sustained 
Disgraces not a high-born woman's lips. 
Ch. In terms distinct and clear she has replied 
To all thy queries : herald, now declare 
Lives Menelaus still, and shall our eyes 
Witness that much-loved hero's safe return ? 
Her. The tale that flatters but is false, I spurn ; 
Quickly the truth my friends would undeceive. 
Ch. From these ambiguous hints, the truth, I ween, 
Accords not with the tenor of our vows. 
Her. His fate we know not ; from th' Achaian host 
He and his vessel both have disappeared. 
Ch. A different track pursued the king from Troy, 
Or did some tempest's fury thwart his course ? 
Her. Like the fleet arrow which attains its aim, 
Your words have struck direct our common woe. 
Ch. What through the fleet does rumour's voice 

assert ? 
Lives he, or must we mourn his tragic end ? 



( 197 ) 

Her. The truth He only knows whose radiant orb 

Sheds on earth's bosom fructifying beams. 

Ch. How rose, how sunk the storm which on the 

fleet, 
Winged with celestial wrath, destructive fell ? 
Her, By news ill-omen'd to o'ercloud a day 
Sacred to triumph ill would please the gods. # 
When at a city with dejected looks 
Arrives some routed army's messenger, 
Announcing tidings, whose sad tenor wakes 
The throb of public sorrow, and o'ershades 

* III would please the gods. The meaning of this 
passage is, that the honours due to the gods presiding 
over good and evil events are different. The former 
call for songs of triumph : to the latter is suited the 
mournful dirge of the Furies, those dread mysterious 
beings who were regarded as the instruments of calami- 
ties, both public and private. The prevalent feeling, 
the herald argues, on the present occasion, ought to be 
joy and exultation at the glorious event of which he 
was the messenger; any partial disaster which had 
occurred to the Grecian fleet on the passage home was 
for the moment to be forgotten. The voice of triumph 
was not to be marred by the hymn of the Furies. 



( 198 ) 

Each house with mourning for love's severed ties- — 

Woes doubly-barbed like these, the fated train 

Of gore-stain'd Mars, th' infernal notes suggest 

Too justly of the Furies' pgean strain ; 

But how shall I, with glorious tidings fraught, 

And coming to a state replete with joy, 

Check its bright triumphs by depicturing 

The heaven -commissioned storm which scourged 

the Greeks? 
It fell on us by night — water and flame, 
Opposing elements, exchanged a pledge 
To wreak destruction on the Argive host. 
'Midst brooding darkness swelPd the raging deep, 
Ship against ship by Thracian blasts was hurled. 
Lashed by the whirlwind's fury, and engulfed 
By the wide-gaping surge, their gallant forms 
Were seen no more — the pilot's art was vain. 
The radiant morn beheld th' ^Egean sea 
With naval spoils, and with the corses pale 
Of Grecian warriors strown: some god preserved 
Our vessel and its crew ; no mortal hand 
The rudder could have swayed : above, around, 



( 199 ) 

Destruction raged ; but fortune smiled on us. 

The anchor held its grasp ; the winds in vain 

Impelled our vessel to the reefy shore. 

Escaped a watery grave our lot appeared 

Too fortunate for credence ; much we mourned 

Th' heroic army's fate, yet solace found 

In mutual converse on our sufferings. 

If of our comrades any yet survive 

Doubtless they deem us perished ; we forebode 

The like of them : may heaven these fears dispel. 

That Menelaus will return, doubt not ; 

If one bright ray of sunshine gild his course, 

And Jove has not decreed to end his race, 

There still is hope : the truth I now have told. 



( 200 ) 



Chorus, 
i. i. 
What power unseen, whose piercing eye 

Sees through the hidden depths of fate, 
'Twixt Helen's name* and destiny 

Such wondrous semblance could create ? 



* The Greeks superstitiously believed that a myste- 
rious destiny frequently controlled the selection of the 
names of individuals, so as to render them ominous of 
their future fortunes. — Vide Elmsly, ad Eurip. Bacch. 
508, et Soph. Aj. 425, and Eurip. Phceniss. 645, as 
quoted by Bishop Blomfield. The verification of this 
doctrine in the case of Helen is illustrated by the 
etymology of that word, which the poet derives from 
e\b), to destroy ; by compounding which with vavg, a 
word somewhat similar in sound to Helen is produced, 
elenaus, signifying destroyer of ships. This is very 
far-fetched, and is in fact no better than absurd pun- 
ning ; but not satisfied with confining it to one word, 
he coins in the same way ekav^pog, destroyer of men ; 
e\e7rro\ig, destroyer of cities. There is no possibility 



( 201 ) 

War-stirring name ! fleets, armies, states 
Destruction sealed, when, through the latticed gates 
Her light form gliding, swift the zephyrs bore* 
Their beauteous charge the billows o'er. 
Then rung the din of arms ; borne o'er the main, 

Athwart the furrowy track of twinkling oars, 
Like hunters after prey,f a shield-armed train 

Sought silver Simois and his woodland shores : 



of translating into English verse this mass of Greek 
compounds. Superstition as to names could alone have 
rendered all this tolerable even in Greek. It forms, 
however, the introduction to an ode which, though 
obscure in parts, is fraught with striking beauties, both 
poetical and moral. 

* Swift the zephyrs bore. The Greek calls it the giant 
zephyr, an epithet which Casaubon and Schutz refer 
to the poetical generation of Zephyr from Oceanus and 
Terra, but G. Wakefield, as quoted by Butler, explains 
yiyavroQ as another word for fieyaXou, itr-^vpov. This 
appears more natural and probable. 

•f Like hunters after prey — nvvayoi. As the hunter 
diligently tracks the steps of wild animals in the chase, 
so the Greeks are poetically represented as pursuing the 
furrowy traces of the vessel of Paris over the waves. 



( 202 ) 

Dire was their object, urged by vengeful flame 
For bloody strife, for furious war they came. 

i. ii. 
Burst on Troy the storm of woe ; 

Dismay and terror marked its course, 
And Jove, of faithless guests the foe, 

Winged with new ire its fatal force. 
Then cowering sunk the guilty throng 
Whose lips profaned the hymeneal song: 
No more thy ancient streets, imperial Troy, 
Rung with notes of festive joy : 
To scorn and bitter hate, by suffering stung, 

Paris, revenge on thee her sons besought ; 
The fatal marriage dwelt on every tongue, 

And the long train of woes thy crimes had 
wrought ; 
The senseless shepherd thus a lion rears,* 
Dear to his house at first, its pest in future years. 



* The senseless shepherd thus a lion rears. This 
beautiful allegory has been strangely referred by some 
critics to Helen ; by Heath for example, and even 



( 203 ) 

i. in. 

Gentle while young and bland 

The milky dugs it prest, 
'Twas tossed and fondled like an infant boy ; 

By old and young carest, 
It licked th' extended hand, 
Whilst sparkling in its ardent eye flashed joy. 

But soon the rabid rage boils o'er, 



Schutz leans to the opinion ; but to say nothing of the 
absurdity of comparing a lovely and delicate female to 
a savage animal, the context clearly refers it to Paris. 
The allegory is preceded by an animated contrast be- 
tween the notes of festal joy with which Troy rung on 
the first arrival of Paris and Helen, and the execrations 
heaped upon them by the populace, after an experience 
of the miseries brought upon Troy by their crime. 
Paris in particular is thus singled out in the line — 

KiicXriGKOvaa Ilapiv top alvoXeKrpov, &c. 

Then follows the allegory, which forms a striking illus- 
tration of the folly of the Trojans in having pampered 
and cherished a beautiful but perfidious youth to their 
own destruction. 



( 204 ) 

Rankling in its youthful veins, 

It spurns control, the fostering hand disdains, 

And leaps the fold to slake its thirst in gore. 
Thus Paris traitor proved and false to Troy, 

Nurse of his youth : for to her gates was borne 
By him, that Syren smiling to destroy, 

Love's fairest flower, * resplendent as the morn ! 
Ah ! fatal day, those hearts so gay 

Dreamt not of sorrow near ; 
How changed the scene — with ruthless mien, 

War, vengeance, death appear, 
And pale Erynnys rolls her haggard eyes — 
Jove's minister of wrath for violated ties. 

ii. i. 
Tradition, rich in varied lore 

Culled from the spoils of time, declares 
That pregnant fortunef breeds a store 

Of sorrows and envenomed cares. 

* Nothing can be more rich and beautiful than the 
epithets clustered together in the original to express 
the loveliness of Helen — but they defy translation. 

■j" A proverbial maxim is here introduced by the 




viiiep«ge2C4 ?.5S0 



( 205 ) 

The laughing hours her smiles bestow, 
Prove the sure harbingers of woe. 
Stern sentiment avaunt — tho' impious deeds, 
Fit offspring in its train, Injustice leads, 
Yet such as borne aloft by nobler views 

The votaries of virtue shine confest, 
No fated stroke of wretchedness pursues, 

The progeny of men like these is blest, 
While wrath divine* and angry fates abide 
The man who justice spurns, and towers in guilty 
pride. 



poet which admits not of literal translation. There is 
current (he says) among men a traditionary, ancient 
saying, that when good fortune has attained her acme, 
she becomes pregnant, nor dies childless — he means 
that she brings forth calamities. 

* While wrath divine, &c. The corresponding pas- 
sage in the original, commencing (j)i\ei Se tikteiv v(3pig, 
is rendered so obscure by the corruption of the text, 
that all the commentators, with Wellauer bringing up 
the rear, have laboured upon it in vain. 



( 206 ) 

ii. ii. 
Nor smoky roofs,* nor scanty stores, 

Nor poverty's low shed, 
Can quench the light which justice pours 

Around the humblest head : 
In her bright train, linked hand in hand, . 
Around the kindred virtues take their stand — 
Where'er the traces of their steps are found 
'Tis holy, consecrated ground ; 

* Nor smoky roofs, &c. This connection of justice 
with abstinence and poverty is finely imagined. Several 
parallel passages may be cited both from ancient and 
modern poetry. Thus Horace — 

" Mundseque parvo sub lare pauper um 

Csense, sine aulseis et ostro, 

Solicitam explicuere frontem." 

So Tasso — 

" Non copre abito vil la nobil luce." 

And Milton— 

" courtesy, 

Which oft is sooner found in lowly sheds 

With smoky rafters, than in tap'stry halls. 

In courts of princes." 

Vide et Lucretius, lib. ii. 27, et Ariosto, cant. xiv. 1. 62. 



( 207 ) 

But from the gilded roofs, the pompous scene 
In lofty state where blood-stained wretches reign, 

Th' indignant goddess turns with angry mien, 
Nor treats ignoble wealth with less disdain. — 

Pure are her ways, though oft to mortal eye 

Beset they seem with clouds, and wrapped in 

mystery. 

[Agamemnon is here supposed to enter in a chariot, 
followed by Cassandra. 

II. III. 

Approach, illustrious king, . 

Crowned with the spoils of Troy ! 
How shall we hail thee and thy triumphs view ? 

How best express our joy? 

How fitly touch the string 
'Twixt vulgar praise and honour justly due ? 

Prompt is perfidy to lour 
'Neath the gay covert of a smile, 
Tears softly flowing veil the arts of guile, 

Unmasked their baseness in affliction's hour. 
When first in Helen's cause thy voice proclaimed 

Fierce war, and echoed back our vales the cry, 



( 208 ) 

Reason condemned that ardour which inflamed 

To maddening rage the Greeks too prompt to die. 
But justly now, thy regal brow 

The wreath of glory wears ; 
Much does this land, this state demand 

Thy sage, paternal cares — 
Soon wilt thou know who firm with hearts unmoved 
Their loyalty have kept, and who have factious 
proved. 



( 209 ) 



SCENE V. 

Chorus, Agamemnon, Cassandra. 

agamemnon. 
Argos, and you her guardian gods, whose power 
Restores me to this land, achieved on Troy 
The retribution due, I first salute. 
No pleading advocate, but Dion's guilt, 
The powers celestial urged unanimous, 
To freight the bloody urn # with the decree 
Of vengeance ; suppliant Hope in vain 



* To freight the bloody urn. This passage, which 
represents the gods as sitting in judgment upon Troy, 
and unanimously condemning her, is borrowed from 
the practice of the most ancient courts of justice in 
Greece. Two urns were placed in the court, into 
which the suffrages of acquittal or condemnation were 
cast by the judges, and the fate of the accused de- 
pended on a comparison of their contents. — Vide 
Archceologia of Potter, vol. i. p. 107. 



( 210 ) 

Th' opposing urn approached— empty it stood — 
That city's fate the smoking ruins tell : 
Still howls the blast of evil — gorgeous spoils 
Feed the fierce flames and wing them with perfumes. 
Rise then our thanks to heaven: success has crown'd 
The snare stupendous, which the Argive horse* 
Bore in his entrails through the streets of Troy. 
Emitting from his sides a shield-armed train, 
Her walls, what time the Pleiades declined, 
With lion-rage they scaled, and slaked their thirst 
In tyrants' gore ; — due tribute to the gods 
Thus paid — thy train of thought I'll now pursue. 
Rare are those mortals who a friend arrayed 

* The snare stupendous, &c. In this passage there 
is a confusion of metaphors in the original. The 
Trojan horse is called the " snare stupendous," " the 
Argive monster," " the foal of the horse," " the rave- 
nous lion leaping the walls;" and all this in the same 
breath. The image of the lion leaping over the walls 
of the city, virepdopidv he nvpyov d)f.inarrrjQ \itov, appears 
to have been in Virgil's mind. — JEn. vi. 

" Quum fatalis equus saltu super ardua venit 
Pergama, et armatum peditem gravis adtulit alvo." 



( 211 ) 

In fortune's smiles with eyes unenvying view : 

That baleful poison rankling at the heart 

A double smart inflicts ; the sufferer mourns 

His own peculiar woes — then, at the sight 

Of others more successful, sighs again. 

I know mankind full well, nor need to learn 

That empty as the shadow of a shade 

Are many who with smiles my presence hail. 

Ulysses only who reluctant sailed, # 

When once embarked, faithful and constant proved ; 

Living or dying be his worth proclaimed. 

On all relating to the city's weal, 

Or to the gods, (due games being first ordained 

In full convention,) we'll deliberate. 

Whate'er is sound, unaltered shall remain ; 

Where remedies are needful, caustic power 

Shall search the peccant part, or, if that fail, 

Excision wisely used the wound may cure. 

* Ulysses. The classical reader will recollect that 
this allusion to Ulysses glances at the story of his 
having feigned madness to avoid being obliged to join 
the armament against Troy. 

p 2 



( 212 ) 

Now shall the palace and its friendly hearths 
Witness our grateful praises to the gods : 
They to a term my distant toils have brought- 
May lasting triumphs on my steps attend. 



Clytemnestra enters. 

CLYTEMNESTRA. 

Senate of Argos, citizens, give ear, 
I blush not in your presence to declare 
That in this heart my consort reigns supreme ; — 
Time banishes reserve : no other tongue 
Could paint my woes while the king warred at Troy. 
Hard is her fate who solitary mourns 
An absent husband— rumour's forgeries 
In ever-shifting forms her peace assail. 
Tale follows tale ; each fresh report augments 
The terrors of the former : had the king 
Endured the many wounds by fame announced, 
His body, like the surface of a net, 
Pierced through and through had been ; if he had 
died 



( 213 ) 

Oft as report has killed him, Geryon self,* 
The triple-bodied monster, who endured 
In that portentous form, the stroke of death 
Repeated thrice, had yielded him the palm. 
Despair ensued, and but for friendly hands 
Which more than once the fatal cord unloosed, 
It had foreclosed my woes : these facts explain 
The absence of Orestes — much-loved pledge 
Of the pure faith we to each other vowed. 
Stropheus, thy friend in arms, with tender care 
Nurtures the youth ; — my dangers, shouldst thou fall 
'Neath Ilion's walls, or should the state be 'whelmed 
In fearful anarchy, he oft pourtrayed : 
Prone is mankind to trample on the fallen : 
His warnings were not coloured by deceit. 
So fast my tears have flowed, that finally 
Their fountain ceased, and I could weep no more. 



* Geryon self, &c. Geryon was a monster whom 
the poets fabled to have had three heads and as many 
bodies. Hercules was sent by Eurystheus to Gades to 
slay him. 



( 214 ) 

The faded lustre in these eyes attests 

Their long-drawn vigils, whilst my tears deplored 

The disregarded torches ; # — if perchance 

I snatched a moment's sleep, the gnats' shrill hum 

Sufficed to break the charm — from cruel dreams 

I woke, to muse on worse realities. 

But this blest day shall banish thoughts of grief: 

The king to me is as the faithful dogf 

* The disregarded torches. She means to say that 
often she could not sleep for fear lest the promised 
signal of the beacon, or torch, announcing the fall of 
Troy, might, through the neglect of the sentinels at 
some of the stations, be unobserved, and therefore fail 
of due transmission. 

")" There is an instance in Burns of a somewhat simi- 
lar accumulation of images to illustrate the fugitive 
nature of earthly pleasures. — 

" But pleasures are like poppies spread, 
You seize the flower, its bloom is shed ; 
Or like the snow falls in the river — 
A moment white, then melts for ever ; 
Or like the Borealis race 
That flit ere you can point their place ; 
Or like the rainbow's lovely form 
Evanishing amidst the storm." 

Ode on Vicissitude. 



( 215 ) 

To the safe flock, or to the heaving ship 
The anchor's grasp ; — to the resplendent fane 
The lofty shaft, or to a father's heart 
His only son ; — as the first glimpse of land 
To sailors tempest-tost — the sun's bright beams 
Chasing a tempest's gloom ; — or to the heart 
Of weary traveller by toil opprest, 
The sight ecstatic of refreshing streams. 
Oh ! blest immunity from threatened woe ! 
Envy, begone — too well we grief have known. 
Most loved of mortals, from this car descend, 
But sully not in dust, great king, thy feet 
Which scarce have rested from the glorious work 
Of trampling down proud Troy: ye thoughtless 

slaves, 
Why this delay ? forget ye my commands, 
With trappings to spread o'er your monarch's way ? 
Be his whole path empurpled: Justice guides, 
Herself, his steps to bliss transcending hope. 
Our watchful care, and the propitious powers 
That rule above, the rest shall regulate. 



( 216 ) 

Ag. Daughter of Leda, guardian of my house, 
In length, thy speech might with my absence vie. 
From other lips than thine such high -wrought 

praise, 
If merited at all, had better flowed. 
Treat me not like a woman, bend not low 
In flattery's pompous modes, # nor wound me thus 
By words fit only for barbaric ears. 
Let no rich trappings proudly deck my way ; 
Reserve such honours for the gods ; frail man 
Should tremble for himself when he delights 
With stately mien to tread o'er gorgeous robes. 
Honour me as a mortal, not a god : 
My fame needs not these costly ornaments : 
No brighter gifts the gods to mortals grant 
Than a sound judgment ; when a man has closed 
A prosperous course in peace, pronounce him blest. 
This be my aim, and I shall fearless prove. 



* In flattery's modes. Shakspeare expressively says 
in Hamlet — - 

" No, let the candied tongue lick absurd pomp." 



( 217 ) 

CI. Ah ! do not thus my wishes contravene. 

Jig. In vain thy wishes seek to change my will. 

CI. Fear might have made thee vow what I implore. 

Ag. If ever purpose was resolved, 'tis mine. 

CI. Would Priam in thy place have thus resolved ? 

Ag. He o'er these trappings would have gladly strode. 

CI. Why thus the busy tongue of censure heed ? 

Ag. The public voice has wondrous potency. 

CV. The unenvied man is ne'er a happy man. 

Ag. It ill becomes thy sex to argue thus. 

CI. It well becomes the fortunate to yield. 

Ag. Art thou resolved to conquer in this strife ? 

CI. Refuse me not, but graciously incline. 

Jg. If thus it must be, let some slave unloose 

These sandals, for with envious glance some god 

May blast me should I walk with covered feet. 

I blush to sully thus, such precious robes, 

Objects so costly — with benignant mien 

Give welcome to this stranger, Jove regards 

With favour those who exercise mild sway. 

Unwillingly we yield the neck to bonds. 

She amid countless spoils the fairest flower, 



( 218 ) 

The conquering army's gift, attends my steps : 

By this empurpled way we enter now, 

Obedient to thy wish, our royal walls. 

CI. Does not the sea beneath its boundless waves 

Nourish, profuse, the matter of these dies, 

These purple costly hues ? thy house, oh king, 

Can boast an ample store — ah ! with what joy 

Would I have yielded to be trodden thus, 

All that refulgent heap, if at this price 

The oracles had fixed thy safe return. 

The root survives, and upwards it shall push 

Luxuriant branches, whose embowering shade 

Shall shield us from the dog-star's scorching beams. 

To the paternal mansion thy return 

Is sweet as warmth amid the winter's cold : 

Or when, 'neath summer's heat, th' unripe grape 

Swells for the vintage, thy loved presence here 

Would shed a grateful coolness. Mighty Jove, 

Give ear, and let thy power the future guide. 

[Exit Agamemnon. 



( 219 ) 



Chorus. 

strophe. 
Why do foreboding terrors haunt* 

This sad, this tortured bosom still ? 
Why does some voice mysterious chaunt 

Sad presages of ill. 
In vain I call my thoughts away, 
These visitants unbidden stay ; 

* The poet, from the beginning of the tragedy, gra- 
dually prepared the mind for its terrible consummation. 
The watchman obscurely hints at the guilt of Clytem- 
nestra in the opening speech ; many of the remarks of 
the chorus are uttered under the influence of a myste- 
rious and undefinable dread of impending calamities : 
but now that the catastrophe approaches, they touch, 
in the strain of their forebodings, the confines of pre- 
diction. The dull and almost indistinct dirge of the 
Furies is supposed to be heard along the walls of the 
palace, and to thrill the hearts of the auditors. The 
beauties of this chorus in the original are striking, but 
from its enigmatical and prophetic character, it is in 
parts peculiarly obscure. The translater is forced to 
be paraphrastic or unintelligible. 



( 220 ) 

Ah ! would to heaven they'd take their flight, 
Like dreams dispelled by morning light, 
Then would my heart its wonted peace regain : 
Long on the sandy borders of the main 

The cables held our wind-bound fleet, 
Which cast impatient looks towards Ilion's shore ; 

That fleet I now returning greet — 
Its triumphs sealed, its martial labours o'er. 
And yet of hope bereft my thoughts inspire 
Nought but the Fury's dirge, unsuited to the lyre. 

ANTISTROPHE. 

Ye viewless forms, that hover near, 

And rack my mind with torturing pain, 

Ah ! were your pictured scenes but empty fear, 
Mere phantoms of the brain ! 

Too well I feel — too surely know 

Ye come the harbingers of woe ; 

Yet, though despairing, to the skies 

My prayers, my vows shall suppliant rise, 

Striving against th' unalterable spell ; 

Nigh blooming health disease and sorrow dwell ; 



( 221 ) 

Perfidious shoals, the pinnace gay 
Arrest full oft, as light it skims the wave — 

Part of the freight then prudence casts away, 
The remnant from th' engulfing surge to save. 
And thus my griefs I fain would woo to rest, 
While whispering low the cares that deep corrode 
my breast. 

EPODE. 

When plenteous harvests sent by favouring Jove 
The furrows gild, or paint with fruits the grove, 
Forgotten are the scenes of want and pain 
Which closely press in pining famine's train." 
But what enchantment* can to life restore 
The man whose vital blood once stains the floor. 



* But what enchantment, &c. This sentiment closely 
accords with that fine passage in Othello, in which, 
adverting to his taper, he says — 

" If I quench thee, thou flaming minister, 
I can again thy former life restore, 
Should I repent — but once put out thy light, 
Thou cunning'st pattern of excellent nature, 
I know not where is that Promethean heat 
That can thy light relumine." — Act V. 



( 222 ) 

On the great master of that potent spell* 

The burning wrath of Jove indignant fell. 

Long since my heart, my tongue, their words had 

found, 
The struggling effort did not fate confound. 
But now in moody grief I pine away, 
For fate relentless frowns, and marks its destined 

prey. 



SCENE VI. 

Chorus, Clytemnestra, Cassandra. 

clytemnestra. 
Thou too, Cassandra, enter, since a place 
Jove has assigned thee 'mid th' attendant train 
Of vestal slaves who tend the Ctesian shrine. 
Quit that proud car, those haughty looks discard. 

* iEsculapius is here alluded to, who, it is fabled, was 
slain by Jupiter with a thunderbolt for reanimating a 
dead corpse. 



( 223 ) 

The mighty offspring of Alcmene # once, 
Fame says, submitted to the servile yoke. 
Happy for thee thy lot is cast 'midst those 
Who from long ancestry their wealth derive. f 
They who by sudden strides to greatness rise, 
Oft rule with iron sway: but we pursue 
Established custom as our rule of life. 
Ch. Plain is her language : tangled as thou art 
In fate's portentous toils, submit thy will — 
If haply due submission it can brook. 
CI. I cannot fail her reason to persuade, 
Except she speak a language barbarous, 

* Hercules, by an injunction of the oracle of Apollo, 
was sold as a slave to Omphale, Queen of Lydia, in 
expiation of the murder of Iphitus, whom he slew in 
a moment of furious passion. — Vide Schutz. 

~f The milder use of power by those who exercise it 
as a consequence of hereditary wealth and dignity, than 
by the newly rich or great, is a fact, verified by general 
experience, and must often have forced itself on the 
observation of so acute an observer of mankind as 
iEschylus, amidst the struggles of parties in a demo- 
cratic state like Athens. This sentiment is repeated 
by him in a very similar form in the Prometheus, 

"A7ra£ £e Tpa^yQ o<ztg av vkov tcparfj. — Prom. 35. 



( 224 ) 

Like the harsh jargon of the swallow's throat.* 
Ch. Follow the queen ; wisdom this part enjoins ; 
Yield to persuasion's voice and quit the car. 
CI. To linger still about the door, the hour 
Forbids ; the victims ranged for sacrifice 
Demand our presence in the central court. 
My bliss transcends all hope— stranger relent; 
If to thy ear an unknown tongue I speak 
Mark it at least by some barbaric sign. 
Ch. Wild as an untamed animal, she needs 
The faithful aid of some interpreter. 
CI. Her mind is frenzied, reason's light is flown : 

* The Greeks were in the habit of calling all per- 
sons swallows who did not speak their language with 
perfect purity. So in the " Frogs" of Aristophanes, 
Hercules asks — 

" Say, are there not besides an endless tribe 
Of beardless dramatists, who prate so fast 
They beat Euripides by many a mile." 

To which Bacchus replies — 

" Aye, those young sprigs, that chattering nest of 
swallows, 
Corrupters of true taste." 

Vide Frogs, Dunster's Translation. 



( 225 ) 

Captive, she mourns her fallen country's woes — 
Like a reluctant colt which champs the bit 
Till it is all suffused with bloody foam. 
Further intreaties are beneath our state. 

[Clytemnestra goes out. 
Ch. Unfortunate, I pity thee, and cannot chide : 
Why linger in that car ? descend and bow 
Thy neck, submissive to the yoke of fate. 
Ca. Ye gods ! oh earth ! Apollo ! oh Apollo ! 
Ch. With piteous plaints why thus address the 

power 
Whom 'tis forbidden to invoke with tears ? 
Ca. Ye gods ! oh earth ! Apollo ! oh Apollo ! 
Ch. With words ill-omened she again invokes 
The god who ne'er responds to strains of grief. 
Ca. Apollo ! oh Apollo ! God of the ways,* 
Wilt thou a second time destroy my peace ? 

* God of the ways. The Greek word is 'Ayvt£v, 
i. e. presiding over the ways, an epithet of Apollo, to 
whom it was customary to erect altars by the public 
roads or streets at Athens. Aristophanes, in the 
" Wasps," applies the epithet in a similar way. 



( 226 ) 

Ch. Hark ! she will sing prophetic her own woes. 
The mind divine still triumphs 'midst these bonds. 
Ca. Apollo! oh Apollo! what abode, 
What mansion this to which my feet are led ? 
Ch. Ask'st thou what mansion ? 'tis the royal house 
Of th' Atridse — what I speak is truth. 
Ca. A house the gods detest : its very walls 
The fearful tale could tell of bloody deeds, 
Of slaughtered kindred — of th' assassin's snares, 
And the ground moistened with a husband's gore. 
Ch. Like a sagacious hound this stranger tracks 
The murderous horrors of this guilty house. 
Ca. Ye weeping slaughtered infants ! # of whose 
flesh, 

* Ye tveeping slaughtered infants. The children of 
Thyestes, the brother of Atreus, are here alluded to, 
all of whom, excepting iEgysthus, who escaped, were 
murdered by Atreus, and parts of their flesh served up 
at a banquet, of which their father, ignorant of what 
had happened, partook. It is fabled by the ancient 
mythologists that the sun, in horror of the atrocious 
deed, averted his beamy head from the spectacle. The 
phantoms of these children are seen by Cassandra in 
her prophetic visions. — Vide Preliminary Dissertation, 
p. 136. 



( 227 ) 

At table served, your reckless sire partook, 
Your's is indeed a thrilling evidence. 
Ch. The fame of thy prophetic powers long since 
Has reached our ears— but prophecies avaunt. 
Ca. Ye gods, what's now impending? what new 

woes, 
What dreadful project frames that mind ? no cure, 
No pardon for it — evil beyond redress ! 
Ch. These prophecies I fathom not, but those 
Refer to facts with which all Argos rings. 
Ca. And dar'st thou, wretch accursed, while at the 

bath 
Attending on thy lord ? how shall my tongue 
The deed proclaim — the fatal hour draws nigh; 
Redoubling from her hand the death-strokes fall. 
Ch. I understand thee not ; thy oracles 
Are shrouded in enigmas dark as night. 
Ca. Ye gods, what now ! is it the net of hell ? 
That snare the consort of his bosom wrought : 
Ye furies, of this house insatiate foes, 
Howl forth your baleful song of horrid joy. 
Ch. What furies urgest thou with hideous shrieks 
q2 



( 228 ) 

To rend these walls ? thy words are terrible ; 
The ruddy drop is curdling at my heart, 
As when the fatal spear quenches life's ray : 
Evil is nigh at hand. — 
Ca. Behold! behold! 

Oh ! free the noble bull from the thick toils 
Which with such matchless art about his limbs 
The hateful heifer twines : she strikes — he falls ! 
And in the bath, his destined tomb, expires. 
Ch. I cannot boast the power to penetrate 
Thy oracles ; but from these shadowy hints 
I augur woe : has ever aught of good 
From the divining power to man accrued ? 
Its deep ambiguous terms the truth invest 
With mysteries which thrill my inmost soul. 
Ca. Alas ! my sad, my pitiable fate ! 
My own woes blend with those I thus deplore. 
Wherefore me wretched did you hither lead 
But to be partner of his bloody doom ? 
Ch. Thy rapt, inspired mind distracted raves, 
Wild are thy strains, unfit for utterance ; 
Thus in soft plaintive thrills the bird of eve, 




cf t'liri.r fa//il /r my friends 



nj.L, 



( 229 ) 

With never-ceasing song, Itys invokes, 

And mourns the sorrows strown in life's drear path. 

Ca. Alas ! alas ! sweet nightingale, I would 

My fate resembled thine ; the soaring wings 

With which the gods thy little form have clothed 

Bear thee through liquid fields of air ; thy life 

Is one unclouded day of gentle peace. 

But me the two-edged steel will fiercely cleave. 

Ch. These terrors vain, these unavailing griefs, 

Whence flow they ? inarticulate and wild 

Thy language is, yet fraught with energy. 

Who to thy prescient eye the path unfolds 

Of future evil and impending woe ? 

Ca. Nuptials of Paris ! fatal to my friends ! 

Scamander ! whose loved stream waters those plains 

In which my infant feet, unknown to woe, 

Disported once, adieu ! ere long thy banks, 

Cocytus, and the stream of Acheron, 

Shall listen to my melancholy dirge. 

Ch. Now dark no more thy words ; the simplest child 

Might know their import ; bitter grief pervades 

My inmost heart while listening to thy strains. 



( 231 ) 

The sister Furies, drunk with human blood, 
Here keep their orgies, nor can be expelled. 
Fixt to this spot they sing the primal crime, 
Then change the strain, and curse the man who 

dared 
His brother's bed invade : err I, or touch the mark? 
Call me false prophetess — impostor : no, 
You cannot ; rather swear I know full well 
The ancient horrors of this royal house. 
Ch. What would the sanctity of oaths avail 
Our sorrows to assuage ; but whence thy power, 
Reared as thou wast beyond the ambient main, 
To speak of things occurring 'neath these walls 
As if to all that passed thou'dst privy been ? 
Ca. It is Apollo's gift — the power is his. 
Ch. Did love impel him, though of race divine ? 
Ca. I could not bring my lips this fact to state. 
Ch. And didst thou on his passion favouring smile ? 
Ca. I seemed to do so, but deceived the god. 
Ch. After the prescient power he had bestowed ? 
Ca. Yes : from my lips its doom the state had heard. 
Ch. And did no vengeance from the god assail thee ? 



( 232 ) 

Ca. My oracles through him were fables deemed. 
Ch. To us they seem with prescient truth instinct. 
Ca. Oh ! ye distracting woes ! again my brain, 
With the prophetic heat inflamed, whirls round : 
How ominous the prelude — see you, yon babes, 
Shadowy as spectres, peopling nightly dreams ! 
Those children, massacred by seeming friends, 
Who their own mangled flesh display to view, 
Their entrails and their hearts, meats horrible, 
Which their own father tasted ; for these wrongs 
Craving revenge, a lion spiritless 
Concealed within my master's chamber prowls. 
My master did I say, ah ! cruel words, 
Sad comment on these bonds — thou dreamest not, 
Leader of mighty fleets, Troy's vanquisher, 
What deadly venom lurks beneath the tongue 
Of her, who recently thy ear addressed 
In words so smooth and fair — a pestilence 
That walks in darkness — woman art thou called ? 
And murderer of thy husband ! other names 
Befit thee — snaky monster ! Scylla dire ! 
Howling amidst the depths of ocean's caves, 



( 233 ) 

The sailor's dread — mother of darkest hell — 

Cursing thy very friends — detested voice — 

E'en now it shrieked as in the battle's rout, 

And hailed the king's return with unfelt joy. 

You disbelieve — it matters not — ere long 

The deed itself will speak, and you shall find 

How true the prophetess that spoke in me. 

Ch. I shuddered while she spoke : her words de- 
scribed 

The banquet of Thyestes — icy fear, 

So vividly she sketched it, chilled my blood. 

Her drift beyond that point I cannot trace. 

Ca. Ere long you'll witness Agamemnon's death. 

Ch. Infatuate woman, check those dreadful words. 

Ca. All help is vain : it must — it must be so. 

Ch. Not if the fates are fixed, but heaven forbid. 

Ca. E'en while you speak the stroke of death 
impends. 

Ch. What man can meditate so foul a deed ? 

Ca. Can you thus blindly solve my oracles ? 

Ch. The author of the plot thou didst not name. 

Ca. Your native tongue you surely comprehend ? 



( 234 ) 

Ch. Thou rt all prophetic, therefore all obscure. 

Ca. Oh heavens ! this fire consumes me— it prevails. 

Apollo ! # cruel deity ! what horrors ! 

This human lioness, while far away 

Her noble mate, has wallowed in the arms 

Of a vile wolf: my murder now she plots. 

The poisoned chalice mingled in her wrath 

A portion holds for me, and while the steel 

For her lord's breast she whets, proclaims the deed 

Fit meed for him who brought me to these shores. 

Why should I longer on my head endure 

These garlands, or support this sceptre ? signs 

Of power prophetic, the sad source to me 

Of nought but deep derision : ere I fall 

These hands shall cast them to the earth — begone, 

Go deck out some new victim of despair.-)- 



* The original word is Avkele, which literally ren- 
dered signifies wolf- destroyer ; but Hesychius, as 
quoted by Bishop Blomfield, explains its meaning me- 
taphorically as cruel or savage. 

-j- The tragedies of Seneca can very rarely be quoted 
with approbation as compared with those of the Gre- 



( 235 ) 

Apollo comes himself to disengage 

My robe of prescient power : these ornaments 

Have but derision brought from friend and foe. 

Harsh names they called me, mad impostor, fool, 

Poor wandering mendicant : all this I bore. 

At length the prophet-god his prophetess 

Conducts, relentless, to this cruel end. 

Not the paternal shrine, but fatal block, 

Will seal my hapless doom ; yet heaven decrees 

I fall not unrevenged : her offspring comes — 

An exile now he roams in distant lands. 

In retribution of his father's fate 

He'll shed his mother's blood : that act will raise 

To their due height the evils of this race.* 

A slaughtered father's corpse the gods have sworn 



cian school, of which they are wretched imitations ; 
but there is a passage in the Agamemnon, referred to 
by Schutz, in which the inspired action and mien of 
Cassandra are painted with so much force as justly to 
merit admiration. — Vide Sen. Agam. v. 700, seqq. 

* Literally, he will fix the top, or coping-stone, to 
the evils of his kindred. 



( 236 ) 

Shall home recall him : — but why touch I thus 
On other's woes ? / who so lately viewed 
Troy's dread catastrophe ; since now the gods 
The destined lot of its proud victors seal. 
No choice is left me : I will greatly die. 
Portals of Hades, I invoke your gloom ! 
All that I shrink from is a lingering death. — 
One mortal stroke, one unconvulsive pang, 
Ope wide the sluices of my blood, and close 
In mild benignant peace these wearied eyes. 
Ch. Most wretched, most illumined of thy sex, 
In long detail what evils hast thou sketched. 
But if thus clearly thy foreboding mind 
Impending fate discerns, why to the shrine 
Where death awaits thee, fearlessly approach 
Like an unconscious victim. 
Ca. To avoid 

My fate is hopeless. Time speeds on the hour. 
Ch. But to spin out the thread of life is sweet. 
Ca. The day is come : nought can be gained by 

flight. 
Ch. Thy too-unbending courage cancels hope. 



( 237 ) 

Ca. Of woes like these nought dream the fortunate. 

Ch. To die thus bravely is a glorious lot. 

Ca. Oh sire rever'd ! and you heroic brothers ! 

Ch. What agitates thee now ? 

Ca. Alas ! alas ! 

Ch. Why these deep sighs? this mental horror 

whence ? 
Ca. The scent of human gore pollutes these walls. 
Ch. You smell the victims burning on our shrines. 
Ca. No, 'tis a vapour as from gaping tombs. 
Ch. Assyrian odours breathe not in your words. 
Ca. Mourning my own and Agamemnon's fate 
These walls I enter : strangers, testify 
I draw not back like birds that shun the snare : 
To this bear witness ye, when, to requite 
My death, a woman dies, and when shall fall 
For man in wedlock curst, a man : I ask 
This last, this parting favour ere I die. 
Ch. Ah hapless fair ! thy piteous fate we mourn. 
Ca. One accent more, one last complaint allow. 
Thee I invoke, oh sun ! to whose bright beams 
Death soon will quench these orbs — you too, whose 

hands 



( 238 ) 

Shall visit on my murderers' heads this deed. 
Easy their triumph o'er a helpless slave. 
Oh ! wretched state of mortals ! ev'n the cloud. 
As it light passes, can to earth bear down 
The fabrics of bright fortunes — sorrow comes, 
And then oblivion comes, and wipes away 
The images of joy that smiled before. 
And this, this sad reverse I most lament. 



Chorus. 

Should fortune empty her bright mine, 
Still would insatiate man repine ; 
Ne'er do her favoured votaries say 
Her smiles on them too brightly play : 
Those who enjoy that golden smile 
Soft flattery's witching tones beguile ; 
To them the glittering valves unfold, 
Their steps obsequious eyes behold, 
Nor in harsh sounds salute their ear 
These accents — There s no entrance here. 
Thus to this man th' immortal powers 
Have given to scale old Priam's towers- 



( 239 ) 

Wafted with glory o'er the main 

See him his native seat regain. 

If he, thus honoured, must atone 

For deeds of slaughter not his own, 

Condemned for blood by others shed 

Himself to mingle with the dead, 

Who that this web mysterious shall explore 

Will not of heav'n a humble lot implore ? 



( 240 ) 



SCENE VII. 

The speakers in the following scene are the various indivi- 
duals composing the Chorus, who, hearing the dying cry of 
Agamemnon, are agitated by cruel doubts as to the part it 
becomes them to act. 

Agamemnon^/to/^ behind the scene exclaims 

Oh heavens ! a mortal stroke has pierced my breast. 

Ch. Hush ! heard ye not some wounded person cry ? 

Ag. Ah me ! beneath a second wound I bleed. 

Ch. That cry was like the king's : the deed is done. 

For our maturest thoughts this crisis calls. 

Ch. Scorning half measures, let us boldly raise 

A general shout and rouse the citizens. 

Ch. Rather with one accord rush in and mark 

By the still smoking steel the bloody deed. 

Ch. Yes, be it so : this hour to firm resolve 

Should nerve the breast, delay must fatal prove. 

Ch. Their aim is clear : a future tyrant's rod 

Our city in this action may discern. 

Ch. We pause, whilst they, scanning with eager hope 

The path of future glory, spurn delay. 



( 241 ) 

Ch. I'm all perplexed with doubt what part to 

take ; 
They who propose the act should find the means. 
Ch. That sentiment is just ; high-sounding words 
Can ne'er re-animate the breathless clay. 
Ch. Shall we, through love of life, ignobly bow 
Before the vile polluters of this house ? 
Ch. It must not be : to die were better far — 
Death is a milder scourge than tyranny.* 
Ch. Can we with reason from these groans infer 
That death already seals our monarch's eyes ? 
Such confidence more lucid proof demands : 
Wide is the space 'twixt knowledge and conjecture. 
Ch. Just is this caution : let us then take means 
To ascertain the great Atrides' fate. 

* Death is a milder scourge, &c. The irresolution 
and wavering of old age is expressively depictured in 
the dialogue of the old men who compQse the chorus, 
yet it is pervaded by the high spirit of freeborn Greeks. 
Butler, however, has justly observed, that their delay 
to enter within was a necessary consequence of that 
rule of Grecian tragedy which forbids the chorus to 
quit the orchestra throughout the performance. — Vide 
Preliminary Dissertation, p. 60. 
R 



( 242 ) 



SCENE VIII. 

Clytemnestra, and the persons composing the 
Chorus. 

clytemnestra. 
My former words were for the occasion framed ; 
But other words I now will boldly speak. 
Who that with artful policy has spread 
The net of evil for a hated foe, 
Will fail to guard against his leaping o'er 
The thick-laid toils ? this deed was long revolved, 
'Twas planned of old— and such consummate skill 
(I scruple not to boast) devised the scheme, 
That by no art could he avert or fly 
His doom ; the snare's interminable folds 
With fatal splendour so enwrapped his limbs, 
That, like a shoal of fish by nets involved, 
To seek escape was vain. I stabbed him twice, 
And twice he groaned, and then his strength gave 
way. 



( 243 ) 

Just as he fell I added a third blow. 

To Hades guardian of the infernal shades, 

An offering due, forth rushed his haughty soul : 

With bloody dew the wound suffused my vest, 

Grateful to me as to the thirsty earth 

Soft genial rain that opes the budding flowers. 

Ancients of Argos, you have heard the truth : 

Think what you will, I glory in the deed. 

And were it for libations now a time, 

My hand ere now had poured them o'er the dead. 

Most just it is that he who mixed the cup 

For such perfidious deeds should drain it dry.* 

Ch. We stand aghast at thy audacious words, 

And at these insults heaped on such a man. 

CI. You treat me as a woman without soul, 

But I confront your clamours dauntlessly, 

And equally contemn your praise or blame. 



* This is one, among others already noticed, of the 
bold orientalisms which pervade the poetry of iEschy- 
lus. Ezekiel uses a similar figure, c. xxiii. 34. 

R 2 



( 244 ) 

This is my husband — Agamemnon : yes, 

By my right hand he died — most just the deed. 

Ch. Woman, what poison, what pernicious herb, 

Earth-born, or nourished in the briny waves, 

Thy frame infects with this demoniac rage ? 

Thine is the people's curse ; thou hast cut off, 

Transfixed thy lord ; exile thy doom shall be, 

And on thy steps the public hate attend. 

CI. To me the doom assigned is banishment, 

The city's hatred, and the public curse ; 

But on this man no weight of censure falls, 

Who, pitiless and stern, like one that marks 

Some victim in the herd for sacrifice, 

Yielded his child, loved offspring of my anguish, 

To charm the fury of the winds of Thrace. 

Exile he justly merited — but me 

You strictly scrutinize and harshly judge. 

Menace for menace I hurl back : subdue 

And then rule o'er me ; but if heaven perchance 

The contrary decree, you'll late grow wise. 

Ch. Deep in design, in act implacable, 

Thou bravest all ; thy mind infuriate teems 



( 245 ) 

With murderous images ; thy eyes flash forth 

A baleful, bloody glare : shunned by thy friends, 

This deed atrocious thou shalt expiate.* 

CI. Attend unto the tenor of my oath. 

By this last act of vengeance justly due 

To my loved daughter's shade — by the dread names 

Of Ate and Erynnys, through whose aid 

This man I sacrificed — ne'er will I tread 

The path of fear long as iEgysthus shares 

My social hearth, and still to me is true. 

He is the potent buckler of my soul. 

There my oppressor lies, the paramour 

At Troy of fair Chryseis ; cold in death 

Beside him is stretched out the captive fair, 

The prophetess, the partner of his bed, 

Whom the safe vessel wafted to these shores. 



* This deed atrocious thou shalt expiate. Butler has 
adduced a sentiment from Measure for Measure re- 
markably parallel to the phraseology of the original. 
The Greek is rvjifia rvfxfxa thtcli. 

" An Angelo for Claudio, death for death." 



( 246 ) 

Both reap their due reward : his doom is just. 
She, like the dying swan, in plaintive strain 
Chaunted her funeral dirge ; and now, her death 
Far from my pillow every care removes.* 

semi-chorus. 
With aspect mild, and in his train 
Not leading slow disease or pain, 
Oh ! that kind Death would close these eyes, 
Since prostrate thus my monarch lies. 
For woman's wrongs he dared the field, 
A woman's hand his fate has sealed. 

CHORUS. 

Helen, infatuate fair ! what strife, 
What scenes of woe, what waste of life, 
Through thee 'neath Ilion's walls ensued 
When Greece thy- ravisher pursued. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

But now with stricken hearts we mourn, 
From its fair stem untimely torn, 

* In this controverted passage the interpretation of 
Schutz is kept in view. 




■ .rut/ of life I'r 






( 247 ) 

Our fairest flower of hope : # no time, 
No rites can expiate this crime. 

CI. Invoke not death, by these events o'erwhelmed, 
Nor in thy fury Helen reprobate, 
As though through her alone destruction fell 
On our brave hosts, and woe pervaded Greece. 

semi-chorus. 
Demon ! through whose relentless hate 
These royal walls are desolate, 
By thee possest, with fury burns 
This woman's heart, and pity spurns. 
Over yon mangled corse her yell 
Sounds hideous as the raven's knell. 



* The corresponding passage in the original is very 
obscure. Among the various comments on it, that of 
Butler has been kept in view in the translation. He 
thus renders the whole passage : " Heu iniquam He- 
lenam, quae multas una, sane multas animas ad Trojam 
perdidisti, nunc autem, Clytemnestra, nobilem tu cla- 
ramque Agamemnonis animam decerpsisti." 



( 248 ) 

CI. Thou judgest well the demon to invoke, 
By whom the lust of slaughter entered first. 
Ere the old wound is closed another gapes. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

Known to this house long since full well 

Is that relentless demon's spell. 

Oh bitter signs of ancient hate ! 

Sad memory of pernicious fate ! 

From Jove, supreme o'er human things, 

This fated train of evils springs. 

CHORUS. 

My king, my lord, in vain I try 
To paint my grief or loyalty. 
Alas ! that fatal snare, that blow 
Which laid thy blooming honours low. 

semi-chorus. 
How mean this couch ! the two-edged sword 
Too fatally thy breast has gored. 

CI. Though you persist to charge this deed on me, 
Yet taunt me not as Agamemnon's wife. 



( 249 ) 

The ruthless demon* who the gory feast 
Of Atreus planned, my form assumed, and pierced 
This man in vengeance of those slaughtered babes. 
Ch. That thou art guiltless of this horrid deed 
What tongue shall dare attest ? how can it be ? 
That ruthless demon might perchance assist — 
Relentless Mars is still athirst for blood 
Until the child-devouring race be scourged. 

CHORUS. 

My king, my lord, in vain I try 
To paint my grief or loyalty. 
Alas ! that fatal snare, that blow 
Which laid thy blooming honours low. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

How mean this couch ! the two-edged sword 
Too fatally thy breast has gored. 



* The ruthless demon, &c. The demon here alluded 
to is called aXaorwp, that is, the evil genius. The 
same demon is alluded to v. 1457. 

rj fiiyav o'ikoiq Toioht 
Saifxova Kcii j3apvfj,rjviv alveie. 



( 250 ) 

CI. His death was not ignoble, nor his crime 
Did perfidy augment ; what suffers he 
But retribution for the cruel wrongs 
Of my Iphigeneia ; let him not boast 
In Hades of a deed requited thus. 

semi-chorus. 
Where shall I turn ? where go ? distraction rends 
My heart : this house is tottering to its fall. 
I dread the bloody storm which rages round 
And to their centre rocks the very walls. 
The sword of justice # Destiny prepares 
Another deed injurious to requite. 

CHORUS. 

Oh! earth, earth, earth ! I would thy jaws had oped 
And swallowed me, ere on this lowly couch, 
Within the silver bath, these eyes had seen 
My monarch's corse stretched out in death : what 

hands 
Shall pay the rites funereal ? from what eyes 

* The sword of justice, &c. An allusion to the ap- 
proaching vengeance to be taken by Orestes on Cly- 
temnestra and iEgysthus. 



( 251 ) 

Descend the votive tears ? Wilt thou presume, 
Thy hands yet dropping with his gore, to pay 
These honours — mingling with thy murderous acts 
The solemn mockery of fictitious woe. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What friendly eyes, suffused by heartfelt tears, 
What tongue sincere shall pay the tribute due ? 

CI. 'Tis not for thee the funeral rites to pay; 
The selfsame hands that slew shall bury him. 
If no embalming tears water his tomb 
From all his train domestic, he will meet, 
When ferried o'er the rapid flood of griefs, 
Iphigeneia's gentle form — at least 
She'll with a fond embrace her father hail. 

semi-chorus. 
Insult on insult : what shall be the term ? 
How mazy is this labyrinth of fate ! 
The slayer's slain, and blood is shed for blood. 
As Jove himself is changeless, 'tis decreed 
That final vengeance shall with certain steps 
O'ertake the guilty: who a race accursed 
Can hope to screen ? to woe this house is doomed. 



( 252 ) 

CHORUS. 

Oh! earth, earth, earth! I would thy jaws had oped 
And swallowed me, ere on this lowly couch, 
Within the silver bath, these eyes had seen 
My monarch's corse stretched out in death : what hands 
Shall pay the rites funereal ? from what eyes 
Descend the votive tears ? Wilt thou presume, 
Thy hands yet dripping with his gore, to pay 
These honours — mingling with thy murderous deeds 
The solemn mockery of fictitious woe. 

SEMI-CHORUS. 

What friendly eyes, suffused by heartfelt tears, 
What tongue sincere shall pay him honours due ? 

CI. His fate stamps truth upon the oracle. 
Oh ! that the evil genius who pursues 
The race of Plisthenes,* soothed by my oath 
To bow to his decrees, would hence depart, 
And other floors imbrue with kindred blood. 
Give me but competence ! how happy then — 
And far remove these sanguinary feuds. 

* Another word for the house of Atreus. 



( 253 ) 

SCENE IX. 
Chorus, Clytemnestra, ^Egysthus. 

yEGYSTHUS. 

Oh light propitious of this vengeful day! 

Now I am well convinced that human crimes 

Just retribution from the gods receive, 

Since prostrate on the earth I view this man, 

Entangled in the net the furies spun, 

His father's crime atoning. O'er this land 

Atreus his father reigned : to fly his home 

He forced his brother, my ill-fated sire 

Thyestes, who, 'tis said, to sway the rod 

Of empire sought ; but soon in suppliant guise 

Thyestes home returning, was beguiled 

By solemn pledges, that his blood should ne'er 

The soil paternal stain : a feast was given, 

At which perfidious Atreus, 'midst the meats, 

To my unconscious sire the roasted flesh 

Of his own children gave — the hands and feet 



( 254 ) 

Were not produced, suspicion to disarm. 

These meats, with evils pregnant to his race, 

He tasted ; but when conscious of the fact 

His stomach spurned the execrable food. 

On the Pelopidae his curses fell ; 

Then, sinking down, his frenzied arm o'erturned 

The festive table, while his tongue implored 

That so might fall the race of Plisthenes. 

Hence this man's fate : justly I urged the deed, 

Survivor sole of thirteen children, erst 

Their father's pride : him Atreus from his face, 

With me, a babe, expelled ; but to this land 

Justice herself my ripened manhood led. 

In all the mazes of this plot I shared ; 

And now to die were welcome, since I view 

This man entangled in the toils of fate. 

Ch. Such taunts, iEgysthus, in this scene of woe, 

Disgust me — judging by thy words, the guilt 

Of the king's murder, and the plot, is thine : 

The populace will stone thee in their wrath. 

Mg. Dar'st thou, a rower of the lowest bench, 

The master thus address ; soon to thy cost, 



( 255 ) 

Old man, thou'lt wiser grow ; famine and bonds, 
Shrewd teachers and physicians of the mind, 
Shall lend their potent aid : thou'rt unconvinced ? 
Kick not against the goads* — 'twill work thee harm. 
Ch, Woman, didst thou, left guardian of this house, 
Defiling first thy warrior-consort's bed, 
Next plan his murder as he reached these shores ? 
Mg. Words such as these are harbingers of woe ; 
Unlike to Orpheus is thy voice, he drew 
All objects round him by his magic strains ; 
But these discordant notes would irritate 
The gentlest mind— force shall thy temper tame. 
Ch. And shalt thou wield the Argive sceptre ? thou, 
Whose coward hands refused to perpetrate 
The murderous deed thy cruel thoughts devised ? 
Mg. His wife alone could compass the design. 
I was of old suspected : to my sway, 



* The line in the original, ttqoq tcivrpa jiyi Xafcrifc, is 
a proverbial expression almost literally parallel to the 
words addressed to St. Paul by the heavenly voice, 
Acts, ix. 6, cncXrjpov aoi irpbq Kevrpa \aicrl£eiv — " It is 
hard for thee to kick against the pricks." 



( 256 ) 

Ere long, his wealth shall bend the citizens. 
A heavy bit the restive steed shall curb, 
Or hunger and a dungeon pride subdue. 
Ch. Was it not cowardice unnerved thy arm? 
Why outrage thus our land and guardian gods 
His wife employing ? doth Orestes live ? 
Oh ! may he soon, by favouring fortune led, 
On both your guilty heads due vengeance wreak. 
Mg. What ! insult still ? thy punishment is sure. 
Ch. Help, comrades, help ! the crisis is at hand.f 
]£„ # # # # 

Ch. Help, help ! let every man unsheath his blade. 
Mg. And I in open fight am prompt to die. 
Ch. We hail the omen, and appeal to fortune. 
CI. Most loved of mortals, let us not thus rush 
On future evils ; heavy is the store 
Already reaped : these bloody thoughts restrain. 
Old men, retire : if ever mortals bowed 



f The critics have differed on the collocation of this 
line and the two following. The author follows those 
who think that one is wanting in the space where the 
asterisks are inserted. 



( 257 ) 

Beneath affliction's stroke, 'tis our sad lot — 
Oppressed by wrath divine : this counsel take, 
Though 'tis a woman speaks. ■ 

Mg. Shall they then depart, 

Their insolence of language unreprest? 
Shall they insult us thus — all prudence spurn ? 
Ch. To flatter wicked men a Greek disdains. 
Mg. Some future day my vengeance shall insure. 
Ch. Not should Orestes, led by heaven, return. 
Mg. I know that fugitives on hope subsist. 
Ch. Pursue the selfsame course — fatten on crime ; 
Tread justice down, there's nought to hinder thee. 
Mg. Thy folly shall not fail its due reward. 
Ch. Boast like the crested cock beside his dame. 
CI. Repress thy just displeasure, scorn these threats. 
Lords of this house, we'll sway the subject land. 



ERRATA. 

;e 177, line 13, for ungents read unguents. 
245, line 16, for safe read same. 



APPENDIX. 



REMARKS ON THE GREEK THEATRE. 

BY 

C. R. COCKERELL, ESQ. 



Some remains of the ancient theatre are still disco- 
verable in most of the considerable cities of Greece. 
In those of Asia Minor (especially of the interior) they 
are better preserved, and in many of them judicious 
excavations might reveal the parts relating to the stage 
and scene, hitherto unexplored, and which have formed 
so fruitful a source of discussion among modern writers. 
The lowest part of the Ko7\ov, or Cavea, is usually 
filled with the architectural members of the permanent 
scene and upper parts of the theatre, preserving be- 
neath the traces of nearly every particular upon which 
we desire to be informed. 



( 260 ) 

The plan and construction of these Theatres vary 
with the periods of their erection ; but in general they 
are found to agree with the scheme given by Vitruvius, 
as respects the situation of the scene and extension of 
the KolXov beyond the semi-circle ; not indeed exactly 
according to his method, but comprising in its circum- 
ference 200 to 220 degrees of a circle. In his Fifth 
Book Vitruvius says, " The Greeks make use of three 
squares, whose angles touch the periphery of the 
orchestra ; that side of one of the squares which is nearest 
the intended situation of the scene determines the extent 
of the proscenium, and a line drawn parallel to it, 
through the point of curvature most distant from the 
auditory, marks the front of the scene." (See the dia- 
gram in the plate). 

The accompanying plan is constructed according to 
the system observed in the best times of Grecian 
history : the lower portion of the Ko~i\oi> is supposed to 
be excavated in the acclivity of a hill, the upper 
to be built on its summit, whilst the permanent scene 
is composed of two orders in an unbroken line with its 
five doors. Such a theatre would have contained about 
13,000 persons, allowing to each the space defined in 



( 261 ) 

the theatre of Pompeii, of 15 J inches: a number of 
sittings seldom exceeded in those of Greece. 

It is unnecessary here to describe the other parts of 
the Greek Theatre, familiar to readers on this subject ; 
there are, however, three essential points, which an 
attentive comparison of the existing remains with the 
notices contained in ancient writers, gives reason to 
believe have hitherto been much misunderstood by 
commentators. 

The first point is, that the Greek Theatre was seldom 
if ever entirely enclosed with walls, so as to connect 
the elevation of the scene with the portico surmount- 
ing the KolXov ; but, on the contrary, the inclosure 
was discontinued from the termination of each ex- 
tremity of the arc, discovering the landscape as ex- 
pressed in the plate ; thus admitting the view and air 
from the open country ; so delightful since they were 
commonly elevated above the surrounding scenery, 
and so refreshing to spectators exposed to the meridian 
sun of those climates. This was certainly the case in 
the early theatres, and it is only with reference to the 
Roman and those of a later period, that any doubt can 
exist on the subject. 



( 262 ) 

The second point to be noticed is, as to the nature 
and signification of the proscenium as defined by 
Vitruvius, generally supposed to describe the situation 
and width of the stage ; but which it would rather 
appear referred to a temporary front projected from the 
permanent scene, in the manner of a roof or canopy : 
an arrangement which must have been highly con- 
venient if not absolutely necessary for the purposes of 
the performance, 1st, to suspend the avXala or great 
curtain, behind which the actors arranged themselves 
for the commencement of the drama ; 2dly, to conceal 
the mechanism for the moveable scenes and for the 
elevation of persons and objects from the stage, which, 
according to all accounts, was complex ; Sdly, to give 
shelter and shade to the performers and the painted 
scenery, to the effect of which the sun's rays would 
be destructive ; 4thly, for the concentration of the 
view to a due portion of the extended scene, which 
would otherwise have often presented to the spectators 
a length of 200 feet. 

The proscenium was therefore, in all probability, 
what the term denotes, a frontispiece, temporarily pro- 
jected from the permanent scene, for the purposes 



( 263 ) 

above enumerated ; and which could be withdrawn 
under the roof of the parascene, and protected from 
the weather when the performance ceased, and the 
theatre served its purposes of political and other assem- 
blies of the people. 

It is probable, from indications discovered in existing 
remains, that this frontispiece was supported on beams 
projected from the upper entablature (see holes in the 
frieze) on rollers from the parascene, in the manner 
of corbels, having a double bearing on the columns and 
the wall behind, the latter of which supplied what is 
technically called the tailing to their projection ; and 
any additional support might easily be supplied from 
the wall above, as in a drawbridge. The utmost pro- 
jection of this frontispiece does not appear to have 
exceeded 15 feet, something less than the width of the 
parascene behind, into which these beams might be 
drawn back. 

It may be presumed that the length of the proscenium 
corresponded with the diameter of the orchestra, which 
probably never exceeded 100 feet, and was bounded 
by the 7replaKToi, i. e. the triangular versatile scenes, de- 
scribed by Vitruvius as having on each side a different 



( 264 ) 

representation, and which, he tells us, in his description 
of the Roman theatre, were placed in the situation 
marked on the plan, immediately at the sides of the two 
doors next the centre, termed hospitalia by Vitruvius, 
and as described upon the plate by Pollux. 

When it is recollected that the utmost extent of the 
modern proscenium never exceeds 50 feet, we may 
easily judge of the practical difficulties of supposing a 
greater extent than that assigned to the ancient, and 
we may with certainty conclude that the whole extent 
of the permanent scene, often nearly 200 feet, could 
never have been occupied by the performers. 

The third point to be remarked upon is the Xoyeiov, 
or pulpitum, a feature of the theatre referred to by 
Vitruvius and Pollux as distinct from the proscenium, 
and which has already been pointed out by Mr. Wilkins, 
in his translation of Vitruvius, as in all probability a 
wooden and temporary stage in front of it. 

Had Vitruvius indulged his readers with any dimen- 
sions of the orchestra, as he has with respect to the 
height of the Xoyelov, which he states " should never be 
more than 12 nor less than 10 feet," there would have 
been less obscurity in this part of the subject, and 



( 265 ) 

commentators would never have supposed (as Genelli 
has done) that the orchestra might be 200 feet in 
diameter ; but in the absence of this information, refer- 
ring to the only examples (those of Side and Patara in 
Asia Minor) in which the orchestra is clearly defined, 
and the remains of these edifices in other parts of 
Greece in which this particular remains to be ascer- 
tained, we never find the orchestra appearing to exceed 
100 feet in diameter in the largest theatres: conse- 
quently the depth of the proscenium, given by the 
diagram of Vitruvius, could not exceed 15 feet: a 
space obviously much too confined for the performers 
and for the moveable scenes, especially when we com- 
pare this depth with the disproportionate length of the 
proscenium, its height from the orchestra, and the un- 
necessarily large space left in the orchestra for the 
chorus. But the width of the Xoyetov, added to that 
of the proscenium, afforded an entire depth of 30 
to 40 feet — a sufficient stage for all the purposes of the 
drama as respects the actors and scenery, and bringing 
them into view from all parts of the theatre without 
encroaching upon the space required by the orchestra. 
We may hazard a conjecture on the occasional 

T 



( 266 ) 

transformation of the Xoyeiov to any purpose required 
by the drama, as a tomb, a cave, a rocky eminence or 
inclined shore. Its construction of wood, and the 
system of scenic illusion by models, (rather than painted 
scenery, which requires the aid of artificial light to give 
its full effect,) employed by the Greeks, renders the " 
supposition highly probable. And it is to be remarked 
that the iuroloi or gateways in the existing remains, 
are always found to be very capacious, so as to admit 
of framing and models of considerable dimensions. 

The hyposcenium has been variously interpreted, but 
the literal meaning of the term, and the express descrip- 
tion of Pollux, seem to warrant the conclusion that it 
was the ornamental front of the \oyelov, towards the 
spectators. Its great height, 10 to 12 feet, and its 
conspicuous situation, required that it should be highly 
ornamented, and on a scale suited to the actors and 
scenery above it. Now it is conformable to all the 
practice of the ancients to give importance to the princi- 
pal objects by analogous ornaments in the subordinate 
details : thus the small statues and columns with which 
this front was decorated, (kioveq and ayaXfiaria of Pol- 
lux) gave size and dignity to the actors, as the small 



( 267 ) ' 

figures, which enriched the metopes of the Doric enta- 
blature, added to the size and effect of the larger 
figures with which the pediment was decorated. 

The above suggestions may suffice to call the atten- 
tion of students to these much disputed points of the 
Greek Theatre, and may lead them to compare the 
descriptions left us by the ancients with the actual 
remains of these edifices, and with the arrangements 
which must necessarily have accompanied the repre- 
sentation of the dramas themselves. 



THE END. 



l'lUNTEI) I1Y C. UOWOIUH AND SONS, HELL YAIID, 
TEMPLE BAR. 



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